Page:History of the Literature of the Scandinavian North.djvu/407

Rh probably inherited from the old school, but it was at the same time deeply rooted in his nature, and the latter fact contributed essentially to the great love with which the Swedes clung to his works, for in them the peculiar traits of the Swedish people have found their fullest and most beautiful expression. But this side of Tegnér's poetry undeniably conceals great dangers, and frequently he has failed to avoid them, so that the splendid imagery and the rhetorical display of words have preponderated, and thus weakened and distorted the poetic effect. This is particularly the case in "Frithjofs Saga," in which, as has been strikingly said, "the lyric element of the poem has been hung as a beautiful drapery over very ordinary materials," and is not really in harmony with it. But the splendor and beauty of the images are so dazzling and enchanting that they irresistibly carry us away, and they also generally contain a wealth of sublime and poetical thoughts. It has been suggested that Tegnér was an eclectic, and so he was, not only in his attitude to the poetical tendencies of Sweden, but also in his sympathies with the master-pieces of foreign literature. His "Nattvärdsbarnen" contains unmistakable traces of Goethe's "Hermann und Dorothea." Byron's narrative poems furnished him the model for "Axel," and "Frithjofs Saga" is written under the influence of Oehlenschläger's "Helge." In this there is, however, nothing to be blamed, for Tegnér maintained his independence of these models. His poems are thoroughly Swedish, and bear the undisguised stamp of his individuality.

(1796-1868) is one of the most remarkable writers of the Gothic school. In his earliest poems the national element was distinctly manifest, and being the master of a graceful form, his name soon became very popular. In 1824 he won the prize of the Academy with his poem, "Sveriges Anor," in which his style displays