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THE STANDARD DICTIONARY OF FACTS 



DANISH LITERATURE 



By the oldest authorities the early Scandi- 

 navian language is referred to as the "Danish 

 tongue," and what has been noted as the most 

 precious legacy of the Middle Ages, historical 

 and poetical, is a collection of some 500 poems 

 known as the Danish ballads. The language in 

 which these poems were preserved is that of the 

 Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries, but they 

 are supposed to have been composed between 

 the years 1300 and 1500. The University of 

 Copenhagen was founded in 1479 and the print- 

 ing press set up in the city in 1490. 



Referring back to the earliest days, the "Ed- 

 das" are counted -on lists of Danish literature, 

 and the story of Iceland is part of the history 

 of Denmark. The years between 1530 and 1680 

 have been named as the fourth period in the 

 development of the Danish language; here real 

 Danish literature begins and it was the Reforma- 

 tion that first gave to it the living spirit. In 

 this connection was Christian Pendersen, who 

 worked up into their present form some half 

 mythical stories, including that of Ogier the 

 Dane, and made a translation of the Bible ; this 

 work was carried on later by Vedel. 



The first original dramatist was Rauch, who 

 wrote some biblical tragedies; Peter Claussen, 

 a Norwegian by birth, left the noted "Descrip- 

 tion of Norway," and Alfred Hoitfield gave a 

 start in history by his "Chronicles of Denmark," 

 printed in ten volumes between the years 1595 

 and 1604. Anders Arebbo, writer of psalms 

 and hymns, has been called the founder of Dan- 



ish poetry, and other hymns were written by 

 Kingo, a Scotchman by descent, who applied 

 Scotch vigor to his work, and his "Winter Psal- 

 ter" is considered a copy of fine lyrical writing. 

 Another writer, Brorson, published a psalm- 

 book in 1740, in which he added the best of 

 Kingo's to his own. With these names we reach 

 the end of the Seventeenth Century. 



Holdberg, born in 1684, and Oehlenschlager, 

 who dates nearly a century later, were the au- 

 thors who had the strongest personal influence 

 on Danish writings. Attention was first called 

 to Holdberg by the marked style in his "His- 

 tory of the World," and he was soon made pro- 

 fessor in the University of Copenhagen. He 

 wrote comedies in prose and verse which still 

 have freshness in matter as well as in style. Oeh- 

 lenschlager created a new form in writing and 

 roused in the people a sense of their nationality 

 through his treatment of Scandinavian mythol- 

 ogy. Between these authors are many noted 

 names and among them Wessel and Ewald, both 

 men of genius, and the German poet and dram- 

 atist, Klopstock, who settled in Stockholm, and 

 had great German influence on Danish letters. 



Early in the Nineteenth Century, the modern 

 fabulist, Hans Christian Andersen, who seems 

 to belong to the world, was born in Denmark. 

 In the year 1835 appeared his first collection of 

 "Fairy Tales" and from that time almost every 

 year until his death, in 1875, he published one 

 or more of these unique stories. He' traveled 

 much about Europe and in a series of memoirs 



