Swedish Romantic literature denotes Swedish literature

Swedish literature

Swedish literature refers to literature written in the Swedish language or by writers from Sweden.The first literary text from Sweden is the Rök Runestone, carved during the Viking Age circa 800 AD. With the conversion of the land to Christianity around 1100 AD, Sweden entered the Middle Ages,...

 between 1809 and 1830. In Europe, the period from circa 1805–1840 is known as Romanticism

Romanticism

Romanticism was an artistic, literary and intellectual movement that originated in the second half of the 18th century in Europe, and gained strength in reaction to the Industrial Revolution...

. It was also strongly featured in Sweden, based on German influences. During this relatively short period, there were so many great Swedish poets, that the era is referred to as the Golden Age

Golden Age (metaphor)

A golden age is a period in a field of endeavour when great tasks were accomplished. The term originated from early Greek and Roman poets who used to refer to a time when mankind lived in a better time and was pure .-Golden Age in society:...

 of Swedish poetry. The period started around 1810 when several periodicals were published that contested the literarature of the 18th century. An important society was the Gothic Society (1811), and their periodical Iduna, a romanticised retrospect to Gothicismus

Gothicismus

Gothicismus, Gothism, or Gothicism is the name given to what is considered to have been a cultural movement in Sweden, centered around the belief in the glory of the Swedish ancestors, originally considered to be the Geats, which were identified with the Goths. The founders of the movement were...

.

One significant reason was that several poets for the first time worked towards a common direction. Four of the main romantic poets that made significant contributions to the movements were: the professor of history Erik Gustaf Geijer

Erik Gustaf Geijer

Erik Gustaf Geijer was a Swedish writer, historian, poet, philosopher, and composer. His writings served to promote Swedish National Romanticism. He also was an influential advocate of Liberalism.-Biography:...

, the loner Erik Johan Stagnelius

Erik Johan Stagnelius

Erik Johan Stagnelius was born October 14, 1793 in Gärdslösa, on the island Öland, Sweden, and died on April 3, 1823 in Stockholm. He was a Romantic poet and playwright....

, professor of Greek language Esaias Tegnér

Esaias Tegnér

Esaias Tegnér , was a Swedish writer, professor of Greek language, and bishop. He was during the 19th century regarded as the father of modern poetry in Sweden, mainly through the national romantic epos Frithjof's Saga. He has been called Sweden's first modern man...

 and professor of aesthetics and philosophy P.D.A. Atterbom

Per Daniel Amadeus Atterbom

Per Daniel Amadeus Atterbom was a Swedish romantic poet, and a member of the Swedish Academy....

.

Geijer

Erik Gustaf Geijer

Erik Gustaf Geijer was a Swedish writer, historian, poet, philosopher, and composer. His writings served to promote Swedish National Romanticism. He also was an influential advocate of Liberalism.-Biography:...

 (1783–1847) was one of the earliest and most prominent members of the neo-gothicist Gothic Society. As a professor he published two cultural-historical works: "Svea rikes hävder" and "Svenska folkets historia", where he gave support to the idea of the Viking Age

Viking Age

Viking Age is the term for the period in European history, especially Northern European and Scandinavian history, spanning the late 8th to 11th centuries. Scandinavian Vikings explored Europe by its oceans and rivers through trade and warfare. The Vikings also reached Iceland, Greenland,...

 being a cultural height that was suppressed during the Middle Ages. Stagnelius

Erik Johan Stagnelius

Erik Johan Stagnelius was born October 14, 1793 in Gärdslösa, on the island Öland, Sweden, and died on April 3, 1823 in Stockholm. He was a Romantic poet and playwright....

 (1793–1823) spent his short adult years living as an outsider in Stockholm. Many of his poems deal with the beauty in nature, encompassing the loneliness of the soul, and it is both for his beauty and his mysticism that Stagnelius's works were to attain recognition. The fame of Atterbom (1790–1855) comes from his flower poetry: Lycksalighetens ö ("Island of Bliss"), 1824–1827, and a collection of poetry called Blommorna.

Esaias Tegnér

Esaias Tegnér

Esaias Tegnér , was a Swedish writer, professor of Greek language, and bishop. He was during the 19th century regarded as the father of modern poetry in Sweden, mainly through the national romantic epos Frithjof's Saga. He has been called Sweden's first modern man...

 (1782–1846) has been described as the first modern Swedish man, in the sense that very much is known about both his life and his person, and that he left an extensive correspondence. His great success lies on Frithiof's Saga (1820–1825), a romanticized version of the Icelandic sagas but in a modern dress. The work was translated into several languages, put to music in Sweden, where it had status of a national epos until the realism of the 1880s obsoleted it.

Early liberalism

Fredrika Bremer

Fredrika Bremer

Fredrika Bremer was a Swedish writer and a feminist activist. She had a large influence on the social development in Sweden, especially in feminist issues.-Background:...

 (1801–1865) was the first writer of realism novel, in the spirit of Jane Austen

Jane Austen

Jane Austen was an English novelist whose works of romantic fiction, set among the landed gentry, earned her a place as one of the most widely read writers in English literature, her realism and biting social commentary cementing her historical importance among scholars and critics.Austen lived...

, and her most important contribution is that she introduced the novel in Swedish on a large scale. Her most important novel was her last: Hertha, in 1856. Hertha is not so much a novel as it is a political debate of women's rights.

Viktor Rydberg

Viktor Rydberg

Abraham Viktor Rydberg was a Swedish writer and a member of the Swedish Academy, 1877-1895...

 (1828–1895) was a key figure in the Swedish culture between 1855 to the modern breakthrough in 1879. In the spirit of Dickens

Charles Dickens

Charles John Huffam Dickens was an English novelist, generally considered the greatest of the Victorian period. Dickens enjoyed a wider popularity and fame than had any previous author during his lifetime, and he remains popular, having been responsible for some of English literature's most iconic...

, Rydberg wrote adventurous novels and stories that in reality were dealing with the poor and exposed people of society. Several works tried to define a world where Christianity became integrated with humanistic ideals of ancient Greece

Ancient Greece

Ancient Greece is a civilization belonging to a period of Greek history that lasted from the Archaic period of the 8th to 6th centuries BC to the end of antiquity. Immediately following this period was the beginning of the Early Middle Ages and the Byzantine era. Included in Ancient Greece is the...

. Rydberg was also noted for groundbreaking historical and theological works.

When Sweden lost Finland

Finland

Finland , officially the Republic of Finland, is a Nordic country situated in the Fennoscandian region of Northern Europe. It is bordered by Sweden in the west, Norway in the north and Russia in the east, while Estonia lies to its south across the Gulf of Finland.Around 5.4 million people reside...

 in 1809, Finnish literature

Finnish literature

Finnish literature refers to literature written in Finland. Earliest texts in Finland were written in Swedish or Latin during the Finnish Middle Age . Finnish-language literature was slowly developing from the 16th century onwards. First artistic heyday of the Finnish literature was the mid-19th...

 moved in its own direction. For the remainder of the 19th century however, it was still the educated Swedish speaking minority in Finland that authored most of Finland's literature. A key figure was the Swedish speaking Johan Ludvig Runeberg

Johan Ludvig Runeberg

Johan Ludvig Runeberg was a Finnish poet, and is the national poet of Finland. He wrote in the Swedish language....

 (1804–1877), was established himself as Finlands national poet, a distinction he has kept into modern times. His most important work was The Tales of Ensign Stål

The Tales of Ensign Stål

The Tales of Ensign Stål is an epic poem written in Swedish by the Finland-Swedish author Johan Ludvig Runeberg, the national poet of Finland...

 (1848–1860), an epic poem

Epic poetry

An epic is a lengthy narrative poem, ordinarily concerning a serious subject containing details of heroic deeds and events significant to a culture or nation. Oral poetry may qualify as an epic, and Albert Lord and Milman Parry have argued that classical epics were fundamentally an oral poetic form...

 about the Finnish War

Finnish War

The Finnish War was fought between Sweden and the Russian Empire from February 1808 to September 1809. As a result of the war, the eastern third of Sweden was established as the autonomous Grand Duchy of Finland within the Russian Empire...

 (1808–1809), the first verse of which became Finland's national anthem

Maamme

Maamme or Vårt land is the title of Finland's national anthem. There is no law on an official national anthem in Finland, but Maamme is firmly established by convention....

. After Runeberg, it was to be Zacharius Topelius (1818–1898) to take the role of national Finnish author. Although he wrote both novels and poetry, his most important contributions were children's books, with Läsning för barn (Reading for Children, 1865–1896).