Johan Ludvig Heiberg was born on December 14, 1791 in Copenhagen, Denmark. He was the son of the political writer Peter Andreas Heiberg (1758–1841), and of the novelist, afterwards the Baroness Gyllembourg-Ehrensvärd, was born in Copenhagen.
Johan Ludvig Heiberg was educated at the University of Copenhagen, and his first publication, entitled The Theatre for Marionettes (1814), included two romantic dramas. This was followed by Christmas Jokes and New Years Tricks (1816), The Initiation of Psyche (1817), and The Prophecy of Tycho Brahe, a satire on the eccentricities of the Romantic writers, especially on the sentimentality of Ingemann.
In 1817 Johan Ludvig Heiberg took his degree, and in 1819 went abroad with a grant from government. He proceeded to Paris, and spent the next three years there with his father.
In 1822 Johan Ludvig Heiberg published his drama Nina and was made professor of the Danish language at the University of Kiel, where he delivered a course of lectures, comparing the Scandinavian mythology as found in the Edda with the poems of Oehlenschläger. These lectures were published in German in 1827.
In 1825 Johan Heiberg came back to Copenhagen for the purpose of introducing the vaudeville on the Danish stage. He composed a great number of these vaudevilles, of which the best known are King Solomon and George the Hatmaker (1825); April Fools (1826); A Story in Rosenborg Garden (1827); Kjøge Huskors (1831); The Danes in Paris (1833); No (1836); and Yes (1839). He took his models from the French theatre, but showed extraordinary skill in blending the words and the music; but the subjects and the humour were essentially Danish and even topical.
In 1828 Johan Heiberg brought out the national drama of Elves' Hill (Danish: Elverhøi); in 1830 The Inseparables; in 1835 the fairy comedy of The Elves, a dramatic version of Tieck's Elfin; and in 1838 Fata Morgana. In 1841 he published a volume of New Poems containing A Soul after Death, a comedy which is perhaps his masterpiece, The Newly Wedded Pair, and other pieces.
Johan Heiberg edited from 1827 to 1830 the famous weekly, the Flyvende Post (The Flying Post), and subsequently the Interimsblade (1834-1837) and the Intelligensblade (1842-1843). In his journalism he carried on his warfare against the excessive pretensions of the Romanticists, and produced much valuable and penetrating criticism of art and literature.
He became in 1849 director of the Royal Theatre in Copenhagen. He filled the post for seven years, working with great zeal and conscientiousness, but was forced by intrigues from without to resign it in 1856.
Johan Heiberg died at Bonderup Manor, near Ringsted, on 25 August 1860.
First of all Johan Heiberg created a Danish critical tradition based upon firm and consequent principles of aesthetics breaking with the often extremely subjective and occasional value judgements of his predecessors. The poetical works of Heiberg were collected, in 11 vols, in 1861-1862, and his prose writings (11 vols) in the same year.
Heiberg's speculative philosophy had relation to Hegel and Kierkegaard, and dealt a lot with the perception of God. His work Om Vaudevillen (1826) has been described as an attack to Dilettantism, "a curse on the age's materialism or atheism in art, a critical attack on the prevailing aesthethics of content," as well as "a strong defense of true science," lifelong study, free laughter, satire and comedy. Johan Heiberg tried to reconcile Hegel's philosophy with Christianity, for instance, equating Hegel's concept of Spirit, with the view of the Christian God; at other times he seems to prefer the Christian doctrine.
In 1831 Johan Heiberg married the great actress Johanne Luise Pätges (1812-1890).
