Page:History of the Literature of the Scandinavian North.djvu/199

Rh writer of songs for special occasions, such as birthdays, weddings, etc. Her poetry is not, however, of any very high order.

The Norwegian preacher, (1647-1708), like Kingo, of Scotch descent, ranks much higher as a poet. His secular songs surpass in poetic sentiment, in strength and freshness, the religious poems which he composed, but still his reputation as a poet is mainly based on the latter. In his secular songs there also occasionally bursts forth a deep, earnest religious feeling, and although they are not all to be rated at the same value, and while some of them scarcely rise above ordinary prose, still they glow with such warmth of sentiment, and are characterized by a style so graphic, and a humor so bold and bewitching, that it is not surprising to find that Dass has remained to this day the favorite poet of the common mass in Norway, and indeed justly, since all that he has written is marked by a truly national and popular stamp. Prominent among his religious poems are his paraphrase of Luther's little catechism and a volume of biblical poetry, and the best known of his secular songs is "Nordlands Trompet," a description of the north of Norway.

But little more is to be said of the secular poetry in Denmark during the period of learning. There attaches, of course, a certain interest to the manner in which the renaissance introduced by Arrebo was gradually spread. His Hexaëmeron was not printed before twenty years after his death, but long before that a long extract of it had been produced by Hans Mikkelsen Ravn, in his "Eythmologia Danica," and this at once found many imitators. It is only to be regretted that Arrebo's influence did not reach so far as to impart a national color to the new school, for the national element was thrust completely into the background, and the verses presented nothing but hollow forms. 's translation of the romance, "Astrée," by d'Urfi, con-