Page:History of the Literature of the Scandinavian North.djvu/204

186 writings against the historian and jurist Andreas Höyer, and this aroused in him the desire of finding out whether he possessed the gift of speaking "the language of the Gods." The result of the first attempt, a satire in the style of Juvenal, encouraged him to continue, and now followed with short intervals that series of masterpieces in comical poetry, which more than any other of his numerous literary productions have made his name famous.

First there appeared in 1719-1720, pseudonymous (he called himself Hans Mikkelsen, brewer in Kallundborg, a name which he afterwards retained in his comedies and other humorous compositions), the great comical heroic poem about the grocer Peder Paars of Kallundborg, who, on his journey to Aars (Aarhuus), where he was going to visit his betrothed, is shipwrecked on the island of Anholt in the Kattegat, and thus has to pass through many strange adventures and experiences. The poem was originally intended as a parody on ancient and modern heroic poems, particularly on the epics of Homer and Virgil, which on account of their variety of illustrations and phantastic figures naturally seemed very ridiculous to the sober and decidedly prosy intellect of the eighteenth century, while the conventional epic style appeared bombastic and pedantic in the eyes of the men of that period. Holberg, who had lost all taste for serious poetry, also shared this view. From his standpoint he begins his poem with great humor, but he soon strikes a different key, and with much higher aims before him he enters a far more fertile field. Already in this poem we find a complete gallery of fully developed comical types which are treated with rollicking humor and in which the follies of his time are attacked.

The several cantos of the epic appeared in rapid succession and created an extraordinary sensation, though but few were able to appreciate their real significance as an impersonal and general satire. Many became angry, felt themselves hurt, and interpreted the ridicule which had been aimed at a class