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I
INTRODUCTION
xv
For Americans Tegner has peculiar interest because of his
relations with Longfellow. Longfellow, it is well known,
spent the summer of 1835 in Sweden, studying the
Swedish language and literature. On his return to the United
States he published an enthusiastic essay on Frithiofs Saga
in The North American Review for July, 1837, giving as an
introduction a bright picture of Swedish life as he had seen
it and as it is reflected in Frithiof. This sketch, though
at first it seems irrelevant, is a fitting prelude, for it puts
the reader unacquainted with Scandinavia in the proper
mood to understand and appreciate the poem. The body of
the essay consists of a spirited retelling of the story, with
translations, in the original metres, of the more significant
passages.
Longfellow evidently sent a copy of his article to
Tegner, for the latter wrote:*
" Bokedal, near Gotheborg,
July 10,1841.
Three years ago—when I was here at Bokedal visiting
Wyk and his beautiful wife, the most beautiful woman in
Sweden—I received the letter and fragmentary translation
of Frithiof with which the Herr Professor honored me.
Professional duties, the Riksdag, recently adjourned, and
above all a severe nervous illness, have prevented my
expressing my thanks as I ought for all this. Without exactly
setting the highest value on public opinion, either in or out
of my own country,and taking theHoratian malignum
sper-nere vulgus for my motto, I rejoice, of course, to find my
poems reproduced in so admirable a manner, and
particularly for a nation which I value. It has always been my con-
* From the Engli$h translation of the letter printed in Samuel Longfellow’s
Life of Henry fVadtworth Longfellow, I, 394 ff.
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