Christian Braunmann Tullin

Christian Braunmann Tullin was a Norwegian businessman and poet. He was regarded as one of Denmark-Norway's most important poetic talents by his contemporaries. He attended Christiania Cathedral School and later graduated from the University of Copenhagen with a theology diploma in 1748. He started a company that produced powder, starch and nails at Granfossen on Lysakerelva, and also built a summer residence there. He became the customs inspector of Christiania in 1759, and later the city manager from 1763. He was also the chairman of the board of customs and excise service and the customs director. He married Mette Feddersen Kruckow, a niece of the magistrate president of Christiania, in 1760. He died in 1765 at the age of 36. As a poet, Tullin wrote in the style of rococo, with graceful pastoral poems dedicated to the ladies of his aristocratic circle. His first major poem, Maidagen (The May Day), was published in 1758 and was a wedding poem that renewed the tradition from the 17th century. It expressed a religious worship of nature in accordance with the sentimental movement of his time. He tried to organize and control these tendencies in his next work, Skabningens Ypperlighed i Henseende til de skabte Tings Orden og Sammenhæng (The Excellence of Creation in Regard to the Order and Coherence of the Created Things), which was published in 1763 and is perhaps his most significant work. It is a poem of philosophical reflection that uses rich imagery and a cosmic perspective. It anticipates the poetry of Henrik Wergeland in some aspects. Tullin was considered as the most gifted poet of Denmark-Norway by his contemporaries. His collected works were published in three volumes between 1770 and 1773.