Harald Kidde

In his childhood he read the Danish author J. P. Jacobsen and German romantic poetry, which profoundly influenced his perspective on the world.

But influenced by the Danish philosopher Søren Kierkegaard he could not come to terms with what he saw as the Lutheran church's thoroughly inadequate explanations of the inherent contradictions in the Bible.

With two-year intervals came from this time a number of works, all of which were large and heavy in mood and addressed big issues like life and death, growth and love.

Danish author and philosopher Villy Sørensen writes in Digtere og Dæmoner (Poets an Demons): The lines are fragments of large thoughtful poems, and the books can best be regarded as philosophical treatises, in which the schematic beings stand as examples and types rather than individuals ..[4] His people were lonely, sensitive, sentient and painful souls.

He had a mysterious and almost ecstatic feeling of life and a justice-seeking idealism, a strong sense of responsibility and compassion for all those who suffered.

After Helten the literary world heard nothing from Harald in six years while he sat in a small cabin in the woods of Värmland together with Astrid and wrote on a gigantic work in four volumes about industrialism and the conditions of modern life: 'Jærnet' (the iron) 'Guldet' (the gold),'Ilden' (the fire) and 'Ordet' (the word).

'Helten' is the monumental work in Kiddes production, but in 'Jærnet', which I confess I've never managed to read to the end, Harald was culminating, not as an artist, but through a performance that one might call a genial fiasco.

Christian Rimestad wrote: We, who knew Harald Kidde, was deeply astonished, that our friend in all the hours we did not see him, went about as far away from us as he could come, in regions where his character was cowarded and shaken into trances and pain.

The words goes right into the heart with an oppressive and paralyzing grip, just because he who fought honest, looking deeper, and aspiring higher than any other in the generation of Danish writers he belonged to; where the one we most reluctant of all could do without.

He was both too young and too good for the early and unflattering death that has taken him away, just as he was approaching the height of his writings, and robbed Danish literature of one of its finest and purest personalities.

So young he was, and so much he still had to give, he did not just leave the memory of a loveable personality full of gentle warmth and soulful earnest, but has inscribed his name in Danish literature with imperishable values and great weight.