Hans Christian Andersen’s unrequited love life fuels John Neumeier’s The Little Mermaid
Somewhere between land and sea, between love and limerence, resides the Mermaid in Hans Christian Anderson’s seminal fable. John Neumeier’s adaptation of Andersen’s The Little Mermaid is a dramatic departure from the more sanitized versions of the tale often depicted in popular culture. True to Neumeier’s style, his ballet offers a more authentic interpretation of Andersen’s story, reflecting elements of the author’s personal life. Rather than a detached whimsical narrative about a young mermaid who longs to be human, The Little Mermaid is an autobiographical tale inspired by Andersen’s real-life experience of unrequited love. In an article with San Francisco Ballet, Neumeier reveals the reason he chose to tell Andersen’s story is because of its “very particular concept of love…the story teaches us that no matter how strong our love may be, it doesn’t obligate the object of our love to love us in return.”
To understand the depth at which Andersen and his characters experienced such unrequited love and self-destructive pain, one may look to his upbringing for context. Born in Odense, Denmark in 1805, Andersen was no stranger to financial instability and social marginalization. His father worked as a shoemaker and his mother as a washerwoman. Following his father’s death when he was only 11, he had to mature rapidly as his mother turned to alcoholism. In addition to financial hardship, Andersen’s plight derived from his appearance, as he was unnaturally tall with strikingly effeminate features. On an article about Andersen’s life, Brooke Allen of The New York Times wrote, “while other boys played out of doors, he preferred to stay home, sewing dolls’ clothes and rehearsing with his puppet theater.” From a very young age, Andersen found refuge in the arts and at age 14, he left for Copenhagen to pursue his dreams of being an artist. Despite his many failed attempts at this venture, he continued to follow his dream until one day, a woman casually referred to him as a poet, which would serve as the turning point of his career. Andersen wrote, “It was the first time anybody had connected my name with that of a poet. It went through me, body and soul, and tears filled my eyes. I knew that, from this very moment, my mind was awake to writing and poetry.” In her book entitled Hans Christian Andersen: The Life of a Storyteller, Jackie Wullschläger notes that Andersen began to see the fairy tale, “as a medium whose formal distance from reality would allow him to write as he was and felt — not only as the social outsider but as the forbidden lover.”
Despite his newfound professional success as a writer, Andersen’s personal life remained a source of profound sorrow. He fell in love numerous times, but his affections were rarely reciprocated. One of his most significant unrequited loves was Edvard Collin, a friend to whom Andersen wrote passionate letters, and was the son of Jonas Collin, a patron of the arts who took care of Andersen when he moved to Copenhagen. In an exchange of over 500 letters, Andersen reveals the depth of his feelings for Collin, “I long for you as though you were a beautiful Calabrian girl… my sentiments for you are those of a woman.” Though they were good friends, Collin eventually rejected Andersen to marry a woman named Henriette (who closely resembles the Princess in Neumeier’s ballet) which caused Andersen to flee Copenhagen from despair to a small island off the coast of Denmark. Ultimately this event was the impetus to him writing The Little Mermaid.
While the Prince in Neumeier’s rendition of The Little Mermaid resembles Edvard Collin, the Poet is an autobiographical representation of Andersen himself. The Poet’s presence throughout the ballet is a constant reminder of the author’s own feelings of limerence and longing for acceptance. And by shadowing the Mermaid, the Poet underscores the parallels between Andersen’s internal struggles and the Mermaid’s external journey. The Poet’s interactions with the Mermaid highlight themes of unattainable love and self-sacrifice. He is a silent observer of her anguish, mirroring Andersen’s own experiences of watching those he loved from afar, unable to bridge the gap between their worlds. In Neumeier’s ballet, the Mermaid’s pain is palpable, showcased through straining movements and expressions of torment. Most notably, when she sacrifices her tail to gain human legs, this illustrates her willingness to give all of herself in hopes of her love being reciprocated. But despite her efforts, much like Andersen, she is met with unrequited love. In Andersen’s story, she loses her voice, and in Neumeier’s version, she must express herself solely through movement. This silence speaks volumes about the emotional cost of her transformation, mirroring Andersen’s own struggle to find his voice in a world that often misunderstood him. In his book titled The True Story of My Life, Andersen wrote, “the history of my life will be the best commentary to all my works.”
Though he experienced a great deal of pain throughout his life, Andersen believed himself to be, “a child of good fortune,” in The True Story of My Life, he continues, “almost everyone meets me full of love and candor, and seldom has my confidence in human nature been deceived.” As with any great artist, their repertoire of work is a comprehensive reflection of their life and cannot be narrowed down to a singular experience. And even with the countless similarities between Andersen and the Mermaid in his autobiographical fable, this represents only a snapshot of a moment in his life. And throughout his career, in the many prolific fairy tales that he has left us with, Andersen also left remnants of his heart and soul. And from those remnants, visionaries like Neumeier saw the opportunity to breathe life into this story to not only honor Andersen and his artistry, but to relay an impactful message about love. At a press conference at the Seoul Arts Center, Neumeier says, “Hans Christian Andersen lives for us because of the great stories that he wrote.”
By Kharma Grimes