Page:History of the Literature of the Scandinavian North.djvu/92



OWARD the close of the fourteenth century the literary development in Iceland and in Norway, of which we have essayed to give some account in the preceding chapter, ceased almost wholly; when Norway became united with Denmark the ancient Icelandic Norwegian book-speech died out in the former country, Danish took its place, and from this time Norway also became joined to Denmark in literature. Intellectual culture emanated from the common university in Copenhagen and bore an exclusively Danish impress. The national movements that were agitated in Norway during her union with Denmark were of but little importance. Not before the end of the eighteenth century did the national sentiment prevail in the literature, and when Norway had gotten her own university (1811), and especially when she had separated from Denmark in the year 1814, she also gradually became more independent in literary respects.

In Iceland alone the ancient "dönsk tunga" survived, and there it has continued to be spoken even to this day, the language having suffered but few and unimportant changes, and these chiefly limited to pronunciation. After the literary activity had almost wholly ceased for some time, there sprang up a new literature, which in its main features gradually approached the general current of European thought, but