Page:History of the Literature of the Scandinavian North.djvu/23

Rh produce flowers and fruits that owe their peculiar fragrance and color to the soil out of which they grew.

In accordance with the above statements, the old Norse literature will in this work be treated in a separate part (Part I), and the modern Icelandic literature, being not only written in the same tongue, but having also many other points in common with it, will be described in a second chapter of the same part of the volume. The literature of the modern peoples of the North—including the Icelanders—might easily have been described collectively, and certainly an author might be tempted to follow this plan, since by that method the important idea of the essential unity of the intellectual products of the northern peoples could be far more clearly expressed and vindicated than when each literary field is considered by itself. Meanwhile we have decided to adopt the latter method, thus making it, as it seems to us, easier for the foreign reader to get a general view of the literary materials and of the various stages of development which, it will be seen, do not always perfectly correspond in the different countries. The modern literature will also be treated under two heads only, instead of three, since Denmark and Norway may in fact be said to have a common literature until the political separation of these countries in 1814. Toward the close of the eighteenth century we find the first signs of efforts on the part of the Norwegians to build up a separate literature, and not before the nineteenth century can it be said of them that they have developed an important literary activity which has contributed something new in form and character to the literary life of the North.

We mentioned the foreign influence which made itself