Regardless of the literary genre in which he wrote, Johannes Ewald renewed it from within. He liberated Danish lyric poetry from the constraints of classicism and was the first Danish author to write prose that expressed the complex, poignant emotional life of its characters--and he did so with acumen and humor. Ewald's background was complex: raised in an evangelical Christian environment, he was a central figure but also a critic of the Enlightenment; he was classically educated but also well read in the latest contemporary literature. With sensitivity he recorded how the new came into being out of the old. In this sense Ewald was the first modern poet in Danish literature. He published occasional poetry, personal poems, and dramas and wrote several prose works, including the autobiographical Levnet og Meeninger (Life and Opinions, serialized in Den danske Tilskuer and Ny Minerva, 1804-1808), published posthumously and considered his...