Background
The son of a priest, he was born and raised in Vestby, Akershus, Norway, and was the elder brother of mathematician Caspar Wessel.
The son of a priest, he was born and raised in Vestby, Akershus, Norway, and was the elder brother of mathematician Caspar Wessel.
He was a relative of the naval hero Peter Tordenskjold. He died, aged 43, in Copenhagen. First of all Wessel is known for his many humorous and satiric verse tales (ed 1784-1785), referring to man"s foolishness and injustice.
Most famous is Smeden og Bageren ("The Smith and the Baker") about the only smith of a village who is pardoned for manslaughter since the village people need one, while a more superfluous baker is executed instead (there are two bakers, the village only needs one) in order to observe the rules that "life pays life".
The style of Wessel is deliberate elaborate and digressive and at the same time elegant and witty. Another genre is the epigram that he mastered, especially his short, witty, impudent, precise and also self-ironic commemorative poems.
Many of them are still quoted. His satirical play Kierlighed uden Strømper (i e Love without Stockings, 1772—with epilogue, 1774) is a generic parody of neoclassical tragedy.
lieutenant takes place in a daily milieu of banal conflicts but observes the formal rules of "heroic language".
lieutenant is still performed. Another play is Anno 7603, written in 1781. The main characters, Leander and Julie, are moved by a fairy to a future (AD 7603) in which gender roles have been switched and only women are allowed to fight in the military.