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LITERATURE.
403
After the revolution
ef 1809 and the loss of
Finland, a new spirit
manifests itself in our
literature. The Romantic
School appears, and a
Yiolent struggle
commences between it and the
Academical tendency. At
the head of the
Romanticists we find the
young P. D. A.
Atterbom (1790/1855), the
founder of an association
called »Auroraförbundet»,
and the most prominent
of those poets who
published their productions in
the »Fosforos» (a
periodical symbolizing the new
light by its scarlet cover).
Atterbom, who received
his earliest impulses from
German poets and
philosophers, especially from
Tieck and Schelling, sought
to give to poetry the vague
longing of music, and also
something of the
meditative speculation of
natural philosophy on the
essence of things.
Although his poetry thus
became somewhat obscure,
he nevertheless possessed superior poetical gifts, and his dramatical saga
»Lycksalighetens ö» (The Island of Felicity), inspired by a medieval legend, is one of
the most beautiful poems created by Romanticism.
Another no less typical representative of the Romantic School (who did not,
however, belong to Atterbom’s circle) is E.J. Stagnelius (1793/1823). Stagnelius
is a mystic, whose poetry, filled with and coloured by gnosticism, oscillates from
ardent sensuality to deep pain at the failings of earthly life. No Swedish poet has
created such harmoniously euphonious stanzas as he. Stagnelius attempted all
the departments of poetry, even that of the drama, and he chose his subjects
from widely different spheres — the world of antiquity, the past ages of
Scandinavia, and ancient Christian legends. Still another representative is E. Sjöberg
(1794/1828, pseudonym Vitalis), who was influenced by neo-romanticism, applied
its principles independently in his noble, melancholy poems, and also with jesting
satire combated its exaggerations.
Despite these superior poetical abilities, the Romantic tendency never really
became popular in Sweden. It lacked too much that transparency which the
nation likes; and it was not through the New School, but at the side of it, that
Swedish literature at this time attained almost classical perfection. The men who gave
rise to this happy condition were Esaias Tegnér (1782/1846) and E. G. Geijer
(1783/1847). These two, representing different sides of the Swedish national
Esaias Tegnér.
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