Page:History of the Literature of the Scandinavian North.djvu/399

Rh very excellent, especially those in which he has imitated the style of the popular ballad.

(1794-1828), whose real name was Erik Sjöberg, was the son of a poor laborer. Too proud to accept charities as he called them, he declined all offered assistance, and he satisfied his thirst for knowledge by his own efforts, as for instance doing menial work in the country during the vacations. While thus tending the cattle his favorite poet, Virgil, was always his faithful companion. His studies were frequently interrupted for want of means, and he was forced to seek employment as family tutor. But he conquered all obstacles and took the doctor's degree in philosophy. This did not materially improve his circumstances, and he continued to struggle with poverty and want. This, in connection with a physical malady, which he had gotten in his infancy, developed in him that fondness for seclusion and meditation which he had in common with Stagnelius. In other respects they were totally different, for while Stagnelius abandoned himself to pantheistic mysticism, Vitalis was, at least toward the close of his life, a believing Christian. In his poems a deep elegiac tone predominates, no doubt a result of his incessant troubles and sufferings. He was continually striving after the ideal, and he hated all that was low and vulgar. Against the world which knew him not and whom he did not understand he frequently sent out shafts of bitter and scathing satire, which, however, at times, as for instance in "Komiska fantasier," rises to genuine humor. He evidently had a great talent for humor, but in his lonely, retired life it did not have a chance to develop. His attacks on the vagaries of the Phosphoristic and Gothic schools were brimful of wit and humor, which he produced in a most delightful manner. But his attacks were no doubt also the result of immense self-conceit. He meant to insinuate that he was himself above and independent of all parties. His serious poems reveal mostly