Author: Tegner, Esaias
Biography:
TEGNER, Esaias (1782-1846: Encyclopedia Britannica)
He was born in Kyrkerud, Sweden, on 13 Nov. 1782, the son of a pastor, Esaias Lucasson, who had adopted the name Tegnerus after his birthplace. The younger Esaias supplemented his basic education with private study successfully enough that he could be employed as a tutor 1797-9 in the house of a wealthy family named Myrhman. He enrolled at the University of Lund in 1799, graduated in 1802, and taught there as tutor, then lecturer, and eventually Professor, until 1824. According to NBG he took orders in 1812. In 1806 he married Anna Maria Gustava Myrhman, with whom he had six children who survived him. He began publishing verse in 1808 and won a prize for a patriotic poem in 1811. He was elected a member of the Swedish Academy in 1819. The first fragments of “Frithiof’s Saga” appeared in 1820. Even before the complete work was printed in 1825, Tegnér was famous in Europe. In 1824 he accepted the position of Bishop of Vexiö, a responsibility that he fulfilled responsibly apart from a brief period of insanity in 1840-41. He died at the episcopal palace in Vexiö on 2 Nov. 1846, celebrated as “one of the greatest modern poets” (SJC). His masterpiece was translated promptly into most of the European languages. The first English translation (1833) was by the King’s chaplain William Strong (1756-1842); he dedicated it to HRH Princess Alexandrina Victoria as a modern embodiment of the virtues of the heroines of Northern myth. The son of Elizabeth (Delarue) and Issac Strong, he was educated at the Charterhouse, London, and at Queens’ College, Cambridge. After ordination he served as vicar or rector of two Lincolnshire parishes until 1834, and was Archdeacon of Northampton from 1797 until his death on 8 Sept. 1842. In 1841 he became a Prebendary of Peterborough Cathedral, where he was buried on 15 Sept. 1842. His wife Margaret Wakelin, whom he had married in 1785 and with whom he had at least one son, continued to live in the precincts of the cathedral until her death in 1848. For biographical details about the translator of 1835, William Edward Frye (1783-1853), see the headnote for A. G. A. Müllner. (Encyclopedia Britannica 11th edn. [1911], 26: 505-6; NBG 44 cols 951-4; SJC 26 Nov. 1846; ancestry.com 11 Aug. 2024; findmypast.com 11 Aug. 2024; ACAD; CCEd 11 Aug. 2024) HJ