Page:History of the Literature of the Scandinavian North.djvu/290

272 adds a rare talent for producing a very effective picture in a few words, and in general for handling the language in a masterly manner. It is a striking proof of how the times were surfeited with the æsthetic productions which the close of the first half of the present century poured forth, that the volumes of poems published in 1838 by Aarestrup hardly received any notice. He was discovered as it were after his death, and not until then did he receive the recognition due to him.

(1793-1874) was also a peculiarly gifted lyric poet. His talent was not very comprehensive, but what he sang had a full, pure tone, and his songs were always clothed in a beautiful form. As a very young man he repeatedly published poems, and this he continued to do from time to time to the close of his life, always preserving his intellectual freshness and enjoying life. Though all his poems are contained in one small volume, still the latter may be said to contain only gems. Bödtcher's poems are chiefly erotic. One of their main traits is a quiet, gentle enjoyment of life, though he is at times exuberant and sparkling. His love of existence reveals itself in a tender feeling for all that is beautiful and good in life, and in a remarkably refined taste for the beauties of nature. He had lived many years in Italy, and reminiscences of his sojourn there are found in his poems. The themes of some of his finest poems are taken from Italy.

(1807-46) did not, on account of unfortunate circumstances, attain the full development of his fine talents, whose originality and freshness are most brilliantly revealed in several exquisite poems of his youth, though they are not always free from a certain rhetorical bombast. His chief work, "Min Broders Levned" (My brother's life), a novel written after a French pattern, is in part autobiographical. On this account the book acquires a greater interest than its merits would otherwise give it.

(born 1811) first attracted the gen-