Page:History of the Literature of the Scandinavian North.djvu/266

248 whatsoever forms it may have assumed, and it was essentially he who strengthened the national feeling and the cause of the people. He aroused an agitation in which certain unwholesome elements have been engendered through misunderstanding and selfishness, and these may for a time cast a shadow on much of the good done by Grundtvig, but on the other hand, his great and varied activity, though always concentrated on one point, in the service of enlightenment, has already borne abundant fruit, and its consequences will continue to be felt for ages to come.

We have seen that Oehlenschläger in a certain sense belonged to the romantic school. Grundtvig had nothing whatever to do with it, but there was another poet who was thoroughly identified with romanticism, and on whom Oehlensehläger's first works exercised a marked influence, and that poet was Beenhard Severin Ingemann (born 1789). His father was a preacher, and in his parent's house he was imbued with the simple piety which characterizes all his poems. In his first collection of poems (published in 1811), which among other things contains the Oriental legend, "Parizade," there is an elegiac, dreamy style, reminding one of Schiller and of the romantic school. This, together with a graceful rhythm, pleased the public, and by his later works he continued to grow in popular favor. In 1812 appeared a second volume of poems containing "Gangergriffen" (Hippogriff), a Persian legend, and the dramatic poem, "Mithridat," and one year later "Procne," a collection in which is found the