Thorkild Strange Bjornvig

Background

BJORNVIG, Thorkild was born on February 2, 1918. Son of Adda and Theodor Bjomvig.

Education

He studied literature at the University of Aarhus and his prize winning Master of Arts thesis (1947) was about Rainer Maria Rilke, whose works he later translated into Danish.

Career

His 1955 collection of poems Anubis is a part of the Danish Culture Canon. With Bjørn Poulsen he founded the literary journal Heretica, as a reaction against the modernist and realist wave in Danish literature, that had prevailed in the years before the Second World War. Heretica was largely inspired by the British periodical The Criterion by T. South. Eliot and was published from 1948-1953, promoting writers such as Frank Jæger, Jørgen Gustava Brandt, Benny Andersen and Per Højholt.

Among his poetry collections are Stjærnen bag Gavlen (1947), Anubis (1955), Figur og Ild (1959), Ravnen (1968) Morgenmørke (1977), Gennem regnbuen (1987) og Siv, vand og måne (1993).

He also published essays about Danish and international authors such as Frank Jæger, Sophus Claussen, Rilke and Edgar Allan Poe. He graduated from Aarhus Katedralskole in 1938, after which he became a student of literary science at Aarhus University.

From 1973 onwards, Thorkild Bjørnvig lived on the island of Samsø.

Achievements

• In 1964 he attained a doctorates degree at the same university.

Membership

Danish Academy 1960.

Connections

Married 1st Grete Damgaard Pedersen in 1946, 2nd Birgit Homum in 1970.

Father:

Adda

Mother:

Theodor Bjomvig

Spouse:

Grete Damgaard Pedersen