Although Andersen spent all his efforts to become a good novelist and playwright, today he is only remembered for the children's tales he wrote.
(1805 – 1875) Danish writer. It has brought new content to the traditional fairy tale and produced products that are read fondly by different generations from every country.
He was born in Odense, a small town in Denmark. His father was a poor shoemaker. He grew up listening to fairy tales, legends, and scary stories, which are products of Danish folk culture, told by his grandmother. He was eleven years old when his father died, who advised him to try to get out of the bad conditions he was living in.
He finished the school of the town he lived in, which was established to educate poor children, in various pains. In 1819 he went to Copenhagen to earn fame and money. He tried his luck in ballet, music, and theater acting; but he could not escape from poverty. However, after gaining the friendship of Jonas Collin, one of the directors of Copenhagen Opera, he was able to enter a certain artist circle.
Andersen made a name for himself with his poems, which he first started to publish in 1827, and with a play that was staged in 1829. He then went on long trips to Germany, France, Italy, Greece, Spain, and Turkey. During this period, he experienced various love adventures, each of which attracted great attention. At this time, he published his novels in which he covered his auto life. In 1835, he published the first series of Eventyr (Tales from Andersen), to which he owed his worldwide fame. This was followed by other books published in 1839 and 1845. Andersen wrote these tales regularly every year until 1872. When he died in Copenhagen on August 4, 1875, his writings had been translated into fifteen languages.
Although Andersen spent all his efforts to become a good novelist and playwright, today he is only remembered for the children's tales he wrote. His writings in other genres are not well known outside of a narrow circle of readers in his country.
Today, these works are considered as an unconscious preparation period from Andersen, which is his main work, to Tales. The first fairy tale he wrote in 1835, the tales in his series bore the signs of an original genre that originated from folklore but drew realistic moral lessons instead of traditional value judgments in them. It is impossible not to see the criticism of aristocratic snobbery in "Princess and Chickpea", the author's reaction to the fact that certain circles do not care about the quality difference between real art and cheap copies in "Nightingale", and ridicule of cheap demagogues that can be seen in almost every administration in "The Emperor's New Clothes".
While some of Andersen's tales convey a sense of confidence that goodness and beauty will eventually overcome evil, many of them contain deep pessimism and unhappy endings. “Tin Soldier” is a sad expression that love cannot always be reciprocated. The sad ending created by poverty in “Little Match Girl” is further emphasized by the happy dreams of the match girl as she dies. Some of the tales of his private life, in which he reflects on some of his unmet longings arising from his personal feelings of inadequacy, in different forms, are knitted with subtleties that only adults can grasp.
Andersen, who holds the realities encountered in life far superior to the ones created in the imagination of any writer, brought a new attitude to folk tales with this understanding, breaking new ground with his observation power that does not miss the details and by combining the daily spoken language with the fairy tale language very well. The genre, which is often called "fairy tale", gained a new meaning with it and got rid of empty narratives in which children linger. Andersen is a valuable “fairy tale father” who creatively develops the imagination of children of different generations from almost every country with his tales and provides their first literary experience.