# History of the Literature of the Scandinavian North/Introduction

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INTRODUCTION.
THE Scandinavian nations constitute together a branch that in early times became detached from the great folk-tree which we usually call the Gothic-Germanic (or Teutonic) race. This branch embraces the inhabitants of Denmark, Norway, Sweden, and Iceland. The latter belongs, though merely in a political sense, to Denmark. In the following review of the intellectual life of these nations, as it has, in the course of time, found expression in literature, we propose to consider the inhabitants of the four countries named collectively, although they at the present time, not only in politics, but also in many other respects, possess strongly marked national individualities, and differ one from the other in many things. We feel justified in so doing for the reason that they, in spite of differences, and in spite of all the feuds and conflicts that have divided them in the past, still in reality constitute a unity, which, quite unlike the other European peoples, even those which are most nearly related to one another, has acquired to the close observer a common physiognomy. They are sister-nations, which, with the changes that time has wrought, have in some respects been developed each in her own peculiar manner. They have frequently met as foes, but in spite of this, they have preserved the mark of kinship, that became their common inheritance when they separated from the great race whence they sprang, to shift ​for themselves. In all essential respects they have given the world an intellectual product differing from all others, both in character and form, though of course continually influenced by the other streams of European culture. The fact that the northern peoples, from an intellectual standpoint, formed a national unity, that they were imbued and influenced by one and the same national spirit, was never for a moment lost sight of by the ancient inhabitants of the North; later it was somewhat obscured, though it was never utterly forgotten; and in our time the Scandinavian peoples have again become thoroughly conscious of their intimate kinship. "The age of sundering is past," said one of Sweden's greatest poets half a century ago, and in spite of the political separation, the sentiment that "we are one people, Scandinavians we are called," as a Danish poet has sung, has during the past fifty years been growing continually stronger.
This unity has found its most natural expression in the language of the peoples of the North. Not only in antiquity, but also far down into the middle ages, they all employed, absolutely, one and the same tongue, and even now the differences between the three principal languages, Danish, Norwegian and Swedish, are very insignificant. The written languages in Denmark and Norway are very nearly identical, though the Norwegians have recently, to a greater extent than ever before, enriched their tongue by the adoption of words from the dialects which have been preserved by the peasants, and which in many respects are closely related to the ancient common Scandinavian tongue. And of the written language in Sweden it may be said that it has been developed out of the original, by the side of the Dan​ish-Norwegian tongue, in such a manner that it is not, in reality, to be regarded as a separate speech; the facts are more adequately expressed when we say that the Danish-Norwegian on the one hand and the Swedish on the other are two important dialects of the same language. A thorough investigation shows that there is less difference between Danish-Norwegian and Swedish, as we find these tongues in literature, than between the different dialects of each of the three languages. Educated Danes and Swedes, for instance, mutually understand each other more easily than they do one of their own countrymen in the narrower sense of the word, who speaks a popular dialect of the same language, and the difficulties that a Dane has to overcome in order to be able to appropriate the treasures of Swedish literature, or the obstacles that stand in the way of the Swede in reference to Danish books, are very slight indeed. With the language spoken in Iceland the case is a very different one. In this distant island the tongue in which the most ancient literary products of the national spirit of the North are preserved, and in which the most vigorous and remarkable literary activity was continued far down into the middle ages, has been preserved almost wholly unchanged, while so decided linguistic changes have been wrought in the other northern lands that the Old Norse and modern Icelandic literature can be read only by those persons on the Scandinavian mainland who have made a special study of the Icelandic language,—a study which not only leads to a keen appreciation of the original kinship, but also enables us to realize more thoroughly the essential unity of the tongues spoken at present in Denmark, Sweden and Norway.
​In the same manner as in the Scandinavian languages, we can trace a national unity in the literature of the North from the most ancient times down to the present. A very natural division is one into two literary epochs, that of ancient, and that of modern times. The latter extends of course a good way back, and among its products are found many works which are really older than much of what we are accustomed to class with the ancient literature. The truth is that there is not only a wide difference in time, but also a great difference in the character of these two literary epochs. That part of the Scandinavian literature which we call the ancient epoch is a pure unadulterated expression of the northern popular spirit, while the modern epoch is more or less influenced by streams of culture from the rest of Europe. This fact becomes singularly apparent in the circumstance that the ancient literature, having its root in oral tradition, extending back to the most hoary antiquity, and losing in force and vigor exactly in proportion to the strength of foreign, external influences upon it—employs the mother tongue as its organ, and thus becomes in the truest sense of the word a popular literature, while the literature of modern times developed out of the Roman culture, which was introduced with Christianity, and in the beginning made use of the Latin language as the vehicle of its thought. In a history of the modern literature of the northern nations it is therefore necessary to show how the national and popular element exerted itself to cast off the foreign yoke which the foreign culture had put upon it, until it at length gained the necessary strength to establish a truly national literature which from its energy and fulness is able to ​produce flowers and fruits that owe their peculiar fragrance and color to the soil out of which they grew.
In accordance with the above statements, the old Norse literature will in this work be treated in a separate part (Part I), and the modern Icelandic literature, being not only written in the same tongue, but having also many other points in common with it, will be described in a second chapter of the same part of the volume. The literature of the modern peoples of the North—including the Icelanders—might easily have been described collectively, and certainly an author might be tempted to follow this plan, since by that method the important idea of the essential unity of the intellectual products of the northern peoples could be far more clearly expressed and vindicated than when each literary field is considered by itself. Meanwhile we have decided to adopt the latter method, thus making it, as it seems to us, easier for the foreign reader to get a general view of the literary materials and of the various stages of development which, it will be seen, do not always perfectly correspond in the different countries. The modern literature will also be treated under two heads only, instead of three, since Denmark and Norway may in fact be said to have a common literature until the political separation of these countries in 1814. Toward the close of the eighteenth century we find the first signs of efforts on the part of the Norwegians to build up a separate literature, and not before the nineteenth century can it be said of them that they have developed an important literary activity which has contributed something new in form and character to the literary life of the North.
We mentioned the foreign influence which made itself ​felt in northern literature as soon as the North became converted to Christianity, and thus drawn into the current of European civilization. It prevented the continuation of an absolutely independent and distinct intellectual life. This influence was in its nature, and in a general sense, a European one, but inasmuch as it had to come to the North by way of Germany, we usually find it to be of a specific German character. Considering the important part acted by Germany in the history of European civilization, this was necessary and unavoidable. Christianity came by way of Germany, and so did the Reformation, the Renaissance, the enlightenment of the eighteenth century, etc., in short, for every material intellectual advancement, the North is indebted to Germany, since the impulse to every movement of great importance in the northern lands came from that country. This was both natural and beneficial, and upon the whole the foreign materials, which this influence brought into Scandinavia, were appropriated and remodeled in an independent manner by the peoples of the North. On the other hand, it cannot be denied that the German influence occasionally, and sometimes through long periods, assumed such a character and became so decided that it must be said of it that it was injurious and obstructed an independent national development. There have been times when the independent intellectual life of the North has become nearly smothered by a too strong and one-sided influence from the leading nation of the Teutonic race, and this is especially true of Denmark, because this country has stood and still stands in so near a relation to Germany. And yet in the midst of all the severe trials to which the Scandinavian North has been exposed in this respect in the ​course of time, its peculiar national life has preserved its germinating power, which has frequently given startling signs of life, and which finally in the fulness of time developed a surprising wealth of flowers that from the beginning of this century to the present day give the people in all the Scandinavian lands a literary individuality in the strictest sense their own.
If the question be asked, of what interest it can be to foreign readers to make a special study of the literary history of the Scandinavian peoples, the first answer must be that this literature occupies a respectable and important position by the side of the literatures of the other civilized peoples. It deserves recognition not only as the intellectual product of a race to which has been assigned a prominent part in the world's history, but also on account of its own peculiar merits. The northern mind has both in the past and in modern times produced a considerable number of works of great intrinsic value. Poets like Holberg and Bellmann, like Oelenschläger and Tegnér, like Paludan-Müller and Runeberg, like Andersen and Almquist, Björnson and Ibsen, and many others, to say nothing of a large number of writers in other branches of literature, would be an ornament to any country, and there can be no doubt that the fact that not a much larger number of Scandinavian authors than the few whose works are partially translated into foreign tongues, are known abroad, must be accounted for by the paucity of the Scandinavian peoples, the difficulty of their languages, and the modest position they hold, especially in the history of our own time. The names mentioned are taken almost at random, and the list could easily be increased ​with a large number of other writers who are eminent in the modern literature of the North. But the old Norse literature also deserves to he known outside of the circle of scholars, to whom alone it has hitherto been really accessible. An account of the historical development of this ancient and modern literature, not merely a nomenclature, but a description, combined with the necessary bibliography, of the literary phenomena, independently, as well as in connection with those streams of culture in foreign lands with which they are more or less interwoven, will therefore be both interesting and useful. By the frequent use of side-lights we shall strive to distinguish what is original and what is borrowed or imitative.