Ludvig Holberg

Ludvig Holberg (1684–1754) was born in Bergen, Norway, and spent his career in Copenhagen, where he was professor of metaphysics, Latin and finally history at the university. He is counted the founder of modern literature in both Denmark and Norway: his mock epic Peder Paars, his thirty-odd comedies for the Danish theater, among them Jeppe of the Hill and Erasmus Montanus, and his satirical voyage Niels Klim's Journey to the World Underground, written in Latin in 1741, are still read and performed. He also wrote histories, essays and moral epistles. Made a baron in 1747, he left his estates to found Sorø Academy, and he never married.