Page:History of the Literature of the Scandinavian North.djvu/263

Rh Hence an exhaustive account of his literary activity is only possible in connection with a full and explicit history of Danish culture in this century, for he was one of its most significant and potent factors. We must here confine ourselves to the task of stating briefly the essentials of his fundamental principles which gave to his whole literary activity its peculiar and important stamp.

Of Grundtvig, in whose works the poetical element is everywhere conspicuous, it has been forcibly said that he was a skald in the old-fashioned sense of the word, and indeed in this sense, that he considered the art as a means to an end; while, with the modern poet, poetry is the end itself. Grundtvig never divested himself of his skaldship, no matter whether he was fighting for his faith, for his people, or was at work in the service of the church; no matter whether he wrote in poetry or prose; but he never wrote poetry for its own sake. He merely gave utterance in song to the great thoughts which filled him, and for their sake alone did he write poems and make researches.

The most of Grundtvig's poems are marked by rare power and tenderness. The reader always feels that they have welled forth from a strong and profoundly poetical soul. They teem with a great wealth of original and striking pictures, and the verses are remarkable for their full-toned harmony, while the author possesses in a high degree the gift of ferreting out the old forgotten treasures of the language and of discovering new, rich veins among its accumulated stratifications. But by the side of these excellences he frequently shows an almost incredible lack of taste. There are but few of his poems that are entirely faultless in form—this applies especially to his sacred songs—and when a perfect one is found it is the result of chance rather than of artistic reflection. For to Grundtvig the form was of but slight importance. His compositions bear throughout the stamp of being improvisations, and this gives them a freshness and originality, while they evince but little method and artistic elabora-