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Inger Christensen

Author profile

born

January 16, 1935 in Vejle, Denmark

died

January 02, 2009

gender

female

genre

Poetry, Literature & Fiction

About this author

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Inger Christensen was born in Vejle, Demark, in 1935. Initially she studied medicine, but then trained as a teacher and worked at the College of Art in Holbæck from 1963–64. Although she has also written a novel, stories, essays, radio plays, a drama and an opera libretto, Christensen is primarily known for her linguistically skilled and powerful poetry.

Christensen first became known to a wider audience with the volumes "Lys" (1962; Light) and "Græs" (1963; Grass), which are much influenced by the modernistic imagery of the 60s, and in which she is concerned with the location of the lyric "I" in relation to natural and culturally created reality. The flat, regular landscape of Denmark, its plants and animals, the beach, the sea, the snow-f...more Inger Christensen was born in Vejle, Demark, in 1935. Initially she studied medicine, but then trained as a teacher and worked at the College of Art in Holbæck from 1963–64. Although she has also written a novel, stories, essays, radio plays, a drama and an opera libretto, Christensen is primarily known for her linguistically skilled and powerful poetry.

Christensen first became known to a wider audience with the volumes "Lys" (1962; Light) and "Græs" (1963; Grass), which are much influenced by the modernistic imagery of the 60s, and in which she is concerned with the location of the lyric "I" in relation to natural and culturally created reality. The flat, regular landscape of Denmark, its plants and animals, the beach, the sea, the snow-filled winters have determined the topography of many of her poems. Christensen has also been known internationally since the appearance of the long poem "Det" (1969; "it" 2006), a form of creative report on the merger of language and the world, which centres around the single word "it" and covers more than two hundred pages. The book clearly reveals the influence on Christensen's poetic work of such a range of authors as Lars Gustafsson, Noam Chomsky, Viggo Brøndal, R.D. Laing and Sören Kierkegaard. The analogy between the development of poetic language and the growth of life is, as in "Det", also the basic motif of the volume of poetry "Alfabet" (1981; Alphabet). In addition to the alphabet itself – which gives the book its title and provides a logical arrangement for its fourteen sections –, the structure is generated by the so-called Fibonacci series, in which every number consists of the sum of the preceding two. The composition reflects the theme exactly: while "Det" points to the story of creation and its "In the beginning was the Word", here the alphabet is a pointer to the "A and O" of the apocalypse.

The story of her life and work offers access to a poetry that is difficult and enigmatic, but simultaneously simple and elementary. Inger Christensen is one of the most reflecting, form-conscious poets of the present day, and her history of ideas also provides information on the paradox of lyric art; making legible through poetic means what must necessary remain illegible, and in this way wrestling a specific order from the universal labyrinth. Here the transitions between the poet and the essayist Christensen are fluid: just as lyrical figures and motifs give her essays a density of their own, figures of thought and configurations of ideas return as an organic component of the poems.(less)

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Books by Inger Christensen

Average rating: 4.38 · 352 ratings · 57 reviews · 20 distinct works

	Alphabet by Inger Christensen, Susanna Nied (Translator) 4.51 avg rating — 183 ratings — published 1981 — 7 editions	My rating:
	It by Inger Christensen, Susanna Nied (Translator), Anne Carson (Introduction) 4.52 avg rating — 67 ratings — published 1969 — 4 editions	My rating:
	Butterfly Valley: A Requiem by Inger Christensen, Susanna Nied (Translator) 4.30 avg rating — 47 ratings — published 1991 — 4 editions	My rating:
	Azorno 4.12 avg rating — 16 ratings — published 2009	My rating:
	Das Schmetterlingstal. Sommerfugledalen. Ein Requiem. Et requiem. 5.00 avg rating — 5 ratings — published 1998	My rating:
	Det malede værelse 3.83 avg rating — 6 ratings — published 1976	My rating:
	Light, Grass, and Letter in April by Inger Christensen, Susanna Nied, Johanne Fosse 3.67 avg rating — 6 ratings — published 2011	My rating:
	The Painted Room by Inger Christensen, Denise Newman (Translator) 2.62 avg rating — 8 ratings — published 1996 — 3 editions	My rating:
	Samlede digte 4.33 avg rating — 3 ratings — published 1999	My rating:
	Lys ; og, Græs 3.33 avg rating — 3 ratings — published 1989	My rating:

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Quotes by Inger Christensen

“Happiness is the change that comes over me
when I describe the world
It comes over the world
Happiness is the change that comes over me
when I'm afraid
It comes over the world
For instance I can be afraid of and for the world
afraid because the world consists among other things
of me so swiftly dying”
― Inger Christensen, It

tags: death , happiness

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Topics Mentioning This Author

topics	posts	views	last activity
Danske Læsere / D...: Yndlings danskeforfattere?	33	55	Jul 28, 2011 03:34am