During the 1890s Viggo Stuckenberg was one of the young avant-garde poets who helped to bring symbolism to Danish poetry. While his early poetry and early novels in the late 1880s tended to express the gray naturalism and radicalism of the period, his later work in the 1890s was lyrical but realistic. His oeuvre earned him a position alongside Sophus Claussen and Johannes Jørgensen and continued elements found in such writers as J. P. Jacobsen and the Russian Ivan Sergeevich Turgenev. Stuckenberg was also a respected critic. His articles in major newspapers and journals and the gatherings of Danish literati at his home helped to introduce new modes of thought and expression.

Viggo Henrik Fog Stuckenberg was born on 17 September 1863 in Vridsløselille, near Copenhagen, to Johanne Georgine Fog Stuckenberg and Frederik Henrik Stuckenberg, who was a teacher at the Vridsløselille prison. The...