160 



THE CENTURY BOOK OF FACTS. 



tinus Kerner, author of the Seeress of Prevorst ; 

 Arndt, author of the German Fatherland, the 

 national lyric ; Anastasius Grim (Count Auer- 

 sperg), author of the Pfaff von Kohlenberg; 

 Nicholas Lenau, author of Savonarola ; Ferdi- 

 nand Freiligrath, a vigorous political poet; 

 Heinrich Heine, author of many popular songs 

 and ballads; Chamisso, who also wrote the 

 romance of Peter Schlemihl ; Gutzkow, distin- 

 guished as a dramatist ; Halm, also a drama- 

 tist, and author of Dcr Sohn der Wildniss ; and, 

 as lyric poets, Herwegh, Geibel, and Beck. 

 Among the distinguished prose writers are 

 Schlosser, author of a Universal History ; Ne- 

 inder, author of a History of the Church, 

 and a Life of Christ ; Prince Puckler-Muskau 

 and the Countess Hahn-Hahn, critics and 

 tourists; Zschokke (a Swiss), Auerbach and 

 Freytag distinguished as novelists, and Feu- 

 erbach ; Schelling as a philosopher ; Strauss, 

 author of a Life of Christ and head of the Ger- 

 man "Rationalists"; Miiller, as a historian, 

 and Krummacher, a writer of fables and para- 

 bles. As historians Rotteck, Niebuhr, and 

 Ranke are among the most distinguished of 

 the present century. One of the most popular 

 prose writers is Adalbert Stifter, whose .Studien 

 ire unsurpassed for exquisite purity and pic- 

 turesqueness . of style. In science the first 

 place belongs to Humboldt's Cosmos ; In chem- 

 istry Liebig is widely and popularly known ; 

 Du Bois-Raymbnd has made great researches 

 in animal electricity, physics, and physiology ; 

 Virchow in biology ; Helmholtz in physiologi- 

 cal optics and sound ; Haeckel has extended 

 the theories and investigations of Darwin. 

 Modern German literature is singularly rich in 

 history, theology, and criticism. 



SCANDINAVIAN LITERATURE. 



Under this head w T e have grouped the litera- 

 ture of the three nations of Scandinavian ori- 

 gin, Sweden, Norway, and Denmark. The 

 old Scandinavian Eddas, or hymns of gods 

 and heroes, may be traced back to the seventh 

 or eighth century. The earlier Edda, which 

 was collected and arranged by Samund in the 

 year 1100, consists of legends of the gods, most 

 of which were probably written in the eighth 

 century. The latter Edda, collected by Snorre 

 Sturleson in the first half of the thirteenth 

 century, contains fragments of the songs of the 

 Skalds who flourished in the ninth and tenth 

 centuries, especially in the latter, when their 

 genius reached its culmination in Norway and 

 Iceland. Among the most renowned works of 

 the Skalds were the Eiriksmal, the apotheosis 

 of King Eric, who died in 952, and the Hako- 

 narmal, describing the fall of Jarl Haco. A 

 celebrated Skald was Egill Skalagrimsson, who 



wrote three epic poems, and two drapas, or 

 elegiac poems. The power of the Skalds de- 

 clined through the eleventh and twelfth cen- 

 turies, and after the fourteenth, when the 

 Christian element first began to appear in Ice- 

 landic poetry, wholly disappeared. Many sagas 

 were written in prose, and the Heimskringla of 

 Snorre Sturleson, who died in Iceland in 1238, 

 contains the chronicles of Scandinavian history 

 from its mythic period to the year 1177. 



Previous to the establishment of the Univer- 

 sity of Upsala, in 1476, the only literature of 

 Sweden was a few rhymed historic legends. 

 The two centuries succeeding this period have 

 left no great names, and few distinguished 

 ones. Saxo-Grammaticus made a collection 

 of legends in the fifteenth century ; Olaus 

 Magni wrote a history of the North in Latin ; * 

 Messenius, who died in 1 637 , wrote comedies and 

 a historical work entitled Scandia Illustratu : 

 Axel Oxenstierna, the celebrated minister, 

 was also a theologist and patron of literature ; 

 Olof Rudbeck, a distinguished scholar, pub- 

 lished in 1675 his Atlantica, wherein, from the 

 study of the old Sagas, he endeavored to show 

 that Sweden was the Atlantis of the ancients. 

 George Stjernhjelm, who died in 1672, was the 

 author of a poem called Hercules, whence he is 

 named the father of Swedish poetry. Sweden- 

 borg, the most striking character in Northern 

 literature, was born in 1688. After several 

 years of travel in England and on the conti- 

 nent, he established himself in Sweden, where 

 he devoted his attention to science, and pro- 

 duced a number of works on natural philoso- 

 phy, mineralogy, zoology, and other kindred 

 subjects. The close of his life was entirely 

 occupied with his religious studies, and the 

 production of. his Arcana Ccelestia, which con- 

 tains his revelations of the future life, and his 

 theory of the spiritual universe. These writ- 

 ings gave rise to a new religious sect, the mem- 

 bers of which, in the United States, are sup- 

 posed to number about 6,000. He professed 

 to be visited by the Holy Spirit, and his works 

 are considered by his disciples as equally in- 

 spired with those of the Apostles. He died in 

 London in 1772. Dalin and Madame Norden- 

 flycht were the first noted poets of the last 

 century. They were succeeded by a multitude 

 of lyric and didactic poets ; but Swedish poe- 

 try did not attain a high character before the 

 commencement of the present century. Among 

 the authors ir.ost worthy of note are Lidner, 

 Bellman, r r,d Thorild. An important history 

 of Sweden has been written by Professors Gei- 

 jer, Fryxell, and Strumbolm. The present cen- 

 tury produced Atterbom and Dahlgren, poets 

 of considerable celebrity, and Tegner, the first 

 of Swedish poets, whose Frithiof's Saga has 



