Janus Djurhuus

Djurhuus said that his "poetic baptism" came in school, when he heard Jákup Dahl (later a provost and Bible translator and author of the first school grammar of the Faroese language) declaim Jóannes Patursson's Nú er tann stundin komin til handa (Now is the hour come for acting), the anthem of the Christmas Meeting of 1888 which began the rise of Faroese nationalism.

After passing the preliminary examinations in 1897, he went to Denmark for university preparation, first in Copenhagen and then in Bornholm.

Djurhuus had also studied classical philology, and also published accomplished Faroese translations of Ancient Greek and Latin works, including some of Plato's Dialogues and poetry by Sappho, and (posthumously) a poetic translation of the Iliad.

(He also published translations of poetic works by Goethe, Dante, Heinrich Heine and Gustaf Fröding).

[4] There is a story that on one occasion when a Greek steamer called at Tórshavn, he went on board and sent a cabin boy for the captain.

[9] He was a national romantic,[10] but his works show what has been described as poetic idealisation and love of his homeland conflicting with "something of a revulsion from [its] reality"[4] and as "doubt and pessimism, a result of the clash between [his] powerful, pathetic dream of beauty and petty, miserable reality".