ABSTRACT
The Danish poet and playwright Johannes Ewald was born on November 18, 1743 and died on March 17, 1781. His father, dr. theol. Enevold Ewald (1696-1754) was one of Pietism’s leading standard-bearers in Denmark, a solemn character and pastor at the orphans’ home in Copenhagen. His mother, Marie Matthiasdatter Wulff (1715-91), who was far more lively and light-minded than her husband, came from a pronounced Moravian milieu. Ewald was thus stamped by the eighteenth century’s Pietistic movements, a stamp which is also clearly visibly in his poetry.
