Adam Gottlob Oehlenschläger (, 14 November 177920 January 1850) was a Danish poet and playwright. He introduced romanticism into Danish literature. He wrote the lyrics to the song Der er et yndigt land, which is one of the national anthems of Denmark. Biography He was born in Vesterbro, then a suburb of Copenhagen. His father, Joachim Conrad Oehlenschläger (1748–1827) was at that time organist of Frederiksberg Church and later, keeper of the royal palace of Frederiksberg. The poet's mother Martha Marie Hansen (1745–1800) suffered from depression, which afterwards deepened into melancholy madness. Oehlenschläger and his sister Sophie Ørsted (1782–1818) were taught only to read and write, until their twelfth year. At the age of nine, Oehlenschläger began to write fluent verses. Three years later, he attracted the notice of the poet Edvard Storm (1749–1794) and as a result Öhlenschläger received an introduction into Scandinavian mythology. Oehlenschläger was confirmed in 1795, and was to have been apprenticed to a tradesman in Copenhagen. He also entered the stage where he was offered a small position. In 1797 he made his appearance on the boards in several successive parts, but soon discovered that he possessed no real histrionic talent. Jurist Anders Sandøe Ørsted (1778–1860) who would later marry his sister Sophie, persuaded him to quit the theatre, and in 1800 he entered the University of Copenhagen. He was disturbed in his studies by the death of his mother, by his inveterate occupation with poetry, and finally by the First Battle of Copenhagen in April 1801, which, however, inspired a dramatic sketch (April the Second 1801), the first work of the kind by his pen that we possess. In the summer of 1802, when Oehlenschläger had an old Scandinavian romance, as well as a volume of lyrics in the press, the young Norse philosopher, Henrik Steffens (1773–1845), returned to Copenhagen after a long visit to Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph Schelling (1775–1854) in Germany. He was full of new romantic ideas. His lectures at the university, in which Goethe and Schiller were revealed to the Danish public for the first time, created a great sensation. Steffens and Oehlenschläger met one day resulting in a conversation of sixteen hours. After Oehlenschläger returned home, he wrote at a sitting his poem Guldhornene, in a manner totally new to Danish literature. The result of his new enthusiasm speedily showed itself in a somewhat hasty volume of poems, published in