Ewald, JOHANNES, a Danish poet, was born 18th November 1743, at Copenhagen, where his father was a pastor of the strictest pietistic views.
Before his father's death he went to a school at Sleswick, from which he ran away to seek an uninhabited island like that of Robinson Crusoe, but did not get farther than Hamburg. In 1758 he began to study theology at Copenhagen. His love of adventure led him to Magdeburg, where he entered an infantry regiment. He soon deserted to the Austrian army, in which he was first a drummer, then an under-officer. After taking part in several engagements in 1759-60, he obtained his discharge, and returned to theological study at Copenhagen. A disappointment in love was the turning-point of his life. After this he gave his attention solely to poetry. To this also he attributed the irregularities of his life, which bore bitter fruit in the poverty and ill-health of his later years. The allegorical poem, Lykkens Tempel, published in 1764, was well received; but it was not till two years later, in his elegy on the death of Frederick V., that he gave clear proof of his lyrical power. The biblical drama, Adam og Eva (1769), shows clear traces of the influence of Klopstock. His other writings include a series of satiric plays; the prose tragedy, Rolf Krage (1770); and the two masterpieces, Balders Død and Fiskerne, the latter containing 'Kong Christian stod ved højen Mast,' which has become the national song of Denmark. He died on the 17th March 1781, leaving an incomplete autobiography, Johannes Ewalds Lernet og Meninger. Though he was scarcely thirty-eight years old at his death, Ewald's work has taken a pre-eminent part in the development of Danish literature. Oehlenschläger has testified in some of his finest poems that Ewald was the creator of the modern poetry of Denmark. As Holberg was the father of Danish comedy, so Ewald was the founder of Danish tragedy. Yet his noblest productions are his lyrical poems and odes, the pure beauty of which is scarcely to be surpassed. The best edition of his works is that of Liebenberg (8 vols. Copenhagen, 1850-55). See the Lives by Hammerich (1860) and Jørgensen (1888).