Johannes Vilhelm Jensen (January 20, 1873 - November 25, 1950) was a Danish author. He was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1944.
He was born in Farsų, a village in North Jutland, Denmark. One of his sisters, Thit Jensen, was also a well-known writer.
Jensen's literary career began near the turn of the century with the publication of Himmerland Stories (1898-1910), comprising a series of tales set in the part of Denmark where he was born. He also wrote poetry, a few plays, and many essays, chiefly on anthropology and the philosophy of evolution. He developed his theories of evolution in a cycle of six novels, Den lange rejse (1908-22) The Long Journey , which was published in a two-volume edition in 1938.
Like his compatriot Hans Christian Andersen, he travelled extensively, even to the United States. A poem of his, "Paa Memphis Station" [At the train station, ] is well known in Denmark. Walt Whitman was among the writers who influenced Jensen.
For many years he worked in journalism, writing articles and chronicles for the daily press without ever joining the staff of any newspaper.
One of his short stories, Gradiva (1903), became famous for being analysed by Sigmund Freud in Delusion and Dream in Jensen's Gradiva.
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Last updated: 10-16-2005 13:14:35
