History of the Literature of the Scandinavian North/Part 3
PART III.
SWEDEN.
PART III.
WORKS OF REFERENCE.
L. Hammarsköld: Svenska Vitterheten, edited by A. Sondén, Stockholm, 1833.
P. Wieselgren: Sveriges sköna Literatur, I-V, Upsala, 1833-48.
P. D. A. Atterbom: Svenska siare och skalder, I-VI, Örebro, 1863-63. Supplement, 1864.
B. E. Malmström: Grunddragen af svenska vitterhetens historia, I-V, Örebro, 1866-68.
G. Ljunggren: Svenska vitterhetens häfder efter Gustaf III. död, I-III, Lund, 1873-78.
G. Cläeson: Öfversigt af svenska språkets och literaturens historie, Stockholm, 1877.
K. V. Bremer: Kurs i svenska literaturens historie, Helsingfors, 1874.
L. Dietrichson: Indledning i Studiet af Sveriges literatur i vort Aarhundrede, Copenhagen, 1870.
A. Fryxell: Bidrag til Sveriges literaturhistoria, 1-9 Heft, 1860-62.
Orvar Odd (O. P. Sturzen-Becker): Grupper och personnager från i går, 1861.
Marrianne de' Ehrenström: Notices sur la littérature en Suède, 1826.
X. Marmier: Histoire de la litterature en Danemark et en Suède, Paris, 1839.
W. and M. Howitt: The literature and romance of Northern Europe, I-II, London, 1852.
P. Hansen: Nordiske Digtere i vort Aarhundrede, en skandinavisk Anthologi, Copenhagen, 1879.
G. Leinburg: Skandinavische Bibliothek, 1847-50; Hausschatz der Schwedischen Poesie, 1860.
E. Lobedanz: Album nord-germanischer Dichtung, II, Leipzig, 1868.
Biografiskt lexikon öfver namnkunnige svenska män, I-XXII, 1835-56. Svenskt biografiskt lexikon, ny följd I-VI, 1858-68.
H. Hofberg: Svenskt biografiskt handlexikon, I-II, Stockholm, 1876. Svenska Akademiens Handlingar.
INTRODUCTORY.
THE oldest linguistic monuments, excepting the runic inscriptions, are in Sweden as in Denmark the provincial laws, which date from the latter half of the thirteenth century. In them we already begin to discern clearly a divergence from the common original northern tongue, which in its purity is only to be found in the oldest of the numerous runic inscriptions. In this divergence the Danish and Swedish form a rather decided contrast to the Norwegian and the Icelandic, while the difference between Swedish and Danish was not very marked at the outset. In the period before the Reformation the Swedish language had not yet begun to develop independently. The increasing intercourse with the Hanseatic cities left numerous traces of the Low German, and the intimate relations between Sweden and Denmark also contributed much to prevent an independent linguistic development, so that the language, as we find it in the literature from the close of the period of the union (about 1520), is in reality far more Danish or Danish-German than Swedish. But after Sweden had severed her connection with Denmark and Norway, and when the Reformation had stimulated the people to secure a greater intellectual independence, then an appreciation of the peculiar claims of the language to be set free from the foreign yoke also grew stronger, and in spite of the influences which the literature was subject to, first from Germany and afterward from France, and which naturally affected the language, Swedish entered upon an essentially independent career. About the middle of the seventeenth century it had thoroughly assumed the character which separates it from the Danish, and had acquired that harder and more sonorous ring, which it owes to the fact that phonetically and in inflection it adhered more closely to the original tongue. But the continued intercourse with foreign countries caused the Swedish to be weighed down with an ever increasing mass of foreign words, until a decided change for the better took place about the middle of the eighteenth century when by the aid of a number of clever writers it was regenerated into a genuine northern tongue. Since that time it has continued to develop its own peculiar characteristics and has become celebrated no less for its power than for its simplicity.