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Documents for "Scandinavian Literature: Biographies":
  • Aakjaer, Jeppe 1866-1930, Danish poet and novelist. He wrote mostly of his native Jutland, and his concern for the poor is reflected in such novels as The Peasant's Son (1899) and Children of Wrath (1904). Aakjaer's...
  • Abell, Kjeld 1901-61, Danish playwright. Abell's Melody That Got Lost (1935, tr. 1939) was an early success. Trained as a stage designer, he was an innovator in stage technique. He later turned to ethical and...
  • Afzelius, Arvid August 1785-1871, Swedish historian, mythologist, and songwriter. He made a notable collection of folk material in Swedish Folk Tunes from Olden Times (3 vol., 1814-16). His autobiography was published in...
  • Ahlin, Lars 1915-, Swedish novelist. Ahlin's works are marked by great creative vitality, psychological realism, and a concern with spiritual values. His first novel, Tåbb med manifestet [Tåbb with...
  • Almquist, Carl Jonas Love 1793-1866, Swedish writer. He was one of the few Swedish authors developing the novel in the period 1830-50. At first a somewhat bizarre romanticist, inclined toward anarchy, he later became more...
  • Andersen, Benny 1929-, Danish writer and musician. Andersen is a noted jazz artist, composer, and writer. He has written novels, children's books, and screenplays, but is best known for his poetry, which is...
  • Andersen, Hans Christian 1805-75, Danish poet, novelist, and writer of fairy tales. Reared in poverty, he left Odense at 14 for Copenhagen. He failed as an actor, but his poetry won him generous patrons including King...
  • Andersson, Dan 1888-1920, Swedish poet, novelist, and short-story writer. Although his entire life was lived in extreme poverty, Andersson dealt in his works with religious and metaphysical more than social...
  • Arrebo, Anders 1587-1637, Danish poet, bishop of Trondheim. His massive narrative poem, the Hexaemeron (written c.1630, pub. 1661), introduced the alexandrine meter to N Europe, where it became the vehicle for serious...
  • Asbjørnsen, Peter Christian 1812-85, Norwegian folklorist, writer, and naturalist. Norwegian Folk Stories (4 vol., 1841-44), which he collected with the poet Jørgen Moe , his friend from school days, was acclaimed throughout...
  • Aukrust, Olav 1883-1929, Norwegian lyric poet. Aukrust's work, which contains strong religious and nationalist sentiment, draws much of its inspiration from Norway's peasant life, traditions, and majestic...
  • Baggesen, Jens 1764-1826, Danish poet and satirist, b. Sjæland. Although a Germanophile, Baggesen was considered the leading Danish poet of his day. His elegant, imaginative poems include Comic Tales (1785)...
  • Bellman, Carl Michael 1740-95, Swedish poet; protégé of Gustavus III. His early poetry was chiefly religious. His dithyrambic odes in Fredmans Epistlar (1790) and Fredmans Sånger (1791) include bacchanals, pastorals, and comic pieces. A fine performer of his own verse, Bellman sometimes wrote music for it, but more often he borrowed French melodies and music from...
  • Bergman, Hjalmar 1883-1931, Swedish novelist, dramatist, and short-story writer. A popular and prolific writer, Bergman wrote from the background of an unhappy childhood and chronic mental depression. His works...
  • Bjørnson, Bjørnstjerne 1832-1910, Norwegian writer and political leader, one of the major figures of Norwegian literature. He was an influential journalist, who sought to revive Norwegian as a literary language and...
  • Bojer, Johan 1872-1959, Norwegian writer. Bojer's novels of contemporary Norwegian life treat social issues from a classical liberal viewpoint. The Power of a Lie (1903, tr. 1908) and The Great Hunger (1916,...
  • Boye, Karin 1900-1941, Swedish poet, novelist, and short-story writer. Boye's volumes of poetry, including Moln [clouds] (1922) and Glömda land [forgotten land] (1924), reveal an austere and ardent idealism as well as a seriousness and social awareness equal to that of her prose fiction. Her early novels, e.g., Astarte (1931) and Kris [crisis] (1934), are stylized and expressionist in style. Kallocain (1941), her last novel, is a fierce protest against totalitarianism. She was a central figure in the modernist movement in Scandinavian literature. Her main concerns included Christianity,...
  • Brandes, Georg Morris Cohen 1842-1927, Danish literary critic. His influence brought the wide currents of contemporary European thought to Danish and other Scandinavian literatures. He wrote and lectured in many languages...
  • Branner, Hans Christian 1903-66, Danish writer. Branner's early novels, often concerned with the irrational fears of childhood, include The Child Playing on the Shore (1937). With The Riding Master (1949; tr. 1951) he turned...
  • Bremer, Fredrika 1801-65, Swedish writer and feminist, b. Finland. Her novels of everyday life include The H Family (1829), The President's Daughters (1834), and The Home (1839). She recorded impressions of travel...
  • Bull, Olaf 1883-1933, Norwegian lyric poet. The son of a successful writer, Bull began his career as a journalist. His poetic brilliance was revealed by the publication of his collection Digte [poems] (1909)....
  • Collett, Camilla (Wergeland) 1813-95, Norwegian feminist novelist, essayist, and literary critic. Her feminist novels include The District Governor's Daughters (1854-55, tr. 1991), the first Norwegian psychological and social novel, and the charming In the Long Nights (1862). From the Camp of the Mute (1877) explores the depiction of women in literature. Collett was the sister of the poet Henrik Wergeland and the lover of J. S. Welhaven, his rival. She devoted her life and work to the emotional...
  • Dinesen, Isak pseud. of Baroness Karen Blixen, 1885-1962, Danish author, who wrote primarily in English. In 1914 she married Baron Blixen and went to live in British East Africa, on a coffee plantation. She was divorced in 1921 and took over...
  • Drachmann, Holger Henrik Herholdt 1846-1908, Danish poet and dramatist. His early work was influenced by the political realism of Georg Brandes, but his later writing was sometimes romantic and lyrical. Besides poetry, he wrote...
  • Duun, Olav 1876-1939, Norwegian novelist. He taught in public schools until 1927. His monumental series of six novels, The People of Juvik (1918-23, tr. 1930-35), is a saga of a Norwegian farm family. Later...
  • Ekelöf, Gunnar 1907-68, Swedish poet. Ekelöf's lifelong interest in mysticism was evident in his first book, Late Arrival on Earth (1932, tr. 1967), a collection of surrealist poems. Later works, such as Ferry Song (1941), involved the conflict between mystical experience and reason. In A Mölna Elegy (1960, tr. 1979) and later in Diwan over the Prince of Emigión (1965) and The Tale of Fatumeh (1966), Ekelöf explored the subjective experience of time. In the 1940s and 50s he experimented with the application of musical forms to verse. His work is admired for its diversity and...
  • Ekelund, Vilhelm 1880-1949, Swedish essayist and poet. Ekelund's writings were influenced by the works of Nietzsche, Hölderlin, and Swedenborg. After publication of his poetic work Havets stjärna [the star...
  • Enquist, Per Olov 1934-, Swedish novelist and dramatist. During a highly productive period in the 1960s and 70s and frequently thereafter, Enquist has based much of his work on historical figures and events. His...
  • Ewald, Johannes 1743-81, Danish poet. Ewald's elegant verse made him the leading poet of his time. He studied for the ministry but soon turned to writing. His lyrical tragic drama Adam and Eve (1769) showed the influence...
  • Falkberget, Johan 1879-1967, Norwegian novelist. Falkberget's early poverty and toil in the mines colored all his works. The trilogies Christianus Sextus (1927-35) and Bread of Night (1940-59) concern mining life...
  • Flygare-Carlén, Emilie 1807-92, Swedish novelist. In The Rose of Thistle Island (1842, tr. 1844) and A Merchant's House on the Skerry (1860-61), she wrote of sea life on the Bohuslan skerries where she spent her childhood. Her 26 multivolume novels were written with the aid of a large staff of relatives and friends and throughout...
  • Fröding, Gustaf 1860-1911, Swedish lyric poet. His first two volumes of poems, Guitar and Concertina (1891) and New Poems (1894), both translated into English in 1925, assured his popularity. They include songs, meditations, and poems in praise of nature. His complete works (1917-23) number 16 volumes. Translations of...
  • Franzén, Frans Michael 1772-1847, Swedish poet, a bishop, b. Finland. He became professor of philosophy at Åbo in 1798. His Ode to Gustaf Philip Creutz (1797) marks the birth of romantic lyric poetry in Sweden.
  • Garborg, Arne 1851-1924, Norwegian writer of the naturalistic school. He founded the weekly Fedraheim (1877), in which he urged reforms in many spheres—political, social, religious, agrarian, and linguistic. Garborg championed the use of Nynorsk, New Norwegian, which is based on rural dialects, as...
  • Gjellerup, Karl Adolf 1857-1919, Danish poet and novelist, b. Sjæland. His early novels, naturalistic and partly autobiographical, include The Young Denmark (1879) and The Disciple of the Teutons (1882). Some of...
  • Goldschmidt, Meïr Aaron 1819-97, Danish novelist, dramatist, and journalist. In his critical weekly Corsaren, he first spared, then ridiculed Kierkegaard. Goldschmidt's novel The Jew of Denmark (1845, tr. 1852) was the...
  • Grundtvig, Nikolai Frederik Severin 1783-1872, Danish educator, minister, and writer, founder of the Danish folk high school. He came into doctrinal conflict with church authorities and was forbidden to preach but was reinstated (1832) and became titular bishop (1861). In education Grundtvig stressed national history and...
  • Guðmundsson, Kristmann 1901-83, Icelandic novelist. Guðmundsson lived in Norway from 1924 to 1937 and wrote in both Norwegian and Icelandic. His sensitive novels and stories of love, remarkable for profound...
  • Gunnarsson, Gunnar 1889-1975, Icelandic novelist. Gunnarsson lived abroad until 1939, when he returned to Iceland. Through his early works, written in Danish, he helped interest Europeans in Icelandic culture. Guest...
  • Hallström, Per 1866-1960, Swedish short-story writer, dramatist, and poet. Before devoting himself to writing, Hallström worked in London and Chicago as a chemist. He is appreciated primarily for his collections...
  • Hamsun, Knut 1859-1952, Norwegian author, a pioneer in the development of the modern novel. Virtually without formal education, in his youth he led a wandering life, and on his second visit to the United...
  • Heiberg, Gunnar Edvard Rode 1857-1929, Norwegian dramatist. His plays include Aunt Ulrikke (1883), The Balcony (1894, tr. 1922), and King Midas (1890), a satire on Bjørnson. The Tragedy of Love (1904), probably...
  • Heiberg, Johan Ludvig 1791-1860, Danish writer, director of the National Theater. In the play Christmas Fun and New Year's Jesting (1817), he satirized leading contemporary writers. As a defender of classical drama, Heiberg became an influential figure in Danish literature and criticism. He composed many vaudevilles, or...
  • Heidenstam, Verner von 1859-1940, Swedish lyric poet, novelist, and essayist. His first volume of poetry, Pilgrimage and Wanderyears (1888), challenged the contemporary realistic and utilitarian Swedish literature. His...
  • Hemmer, Jarl Robert 1893-1944, Finnish author who wrote in Swedish. Inwardly troubled, he experienced several religious crises and finally committed suicide. His poems, e.g., Realm of the Rye (1922, tr. 1938), show a...
  • Hoel, Sigurd 1890-1960, Norwegian novelist. Hoel's sophisticated novels of urban life include the witty satire Sinners in Summertime (1927, tr. 1930) and the more serious One Day in October (1931, tr. 1932)....
  • Holberg, Ludvig, Baron 1684-1754, Danish dramatist, essayist, poet, and historian, apostle of the Enlightenment in Scandinavia. Born in Norway, he studied theology in Bergen and in Copenhagen. After 1708 he made Denmark...
  • Ibsen, Henrik 1828-1906, Norwegian dramatist and poet. His early years were lonely and miserable. Distressed by the consequences of his family's financial ruin and on his own at sixteen, he first was...
  • Ingemann, Bernhard Severin 1789-1862, Danish poet, playwright, and novelist. As teacher and director of Soro Academy, Ingemann adopted the folk high school principles of N. F. S. Grundtvig. His novels, recalling Denmark's past...
  • Jørgensen, Jens Johannes 1866-1956, Danish poet and religious writer. He reacted against the naturalism of Georg Brandes and, in such works as Poems (1898), turned to symbolism and emotion. Jørgensen's conversion (1896)...
  • Jacobsen, Jens Peter 1847-85, Danish writer. His historical romance Marie Grubbe (1876, tr. 1917) deals with spiritual degeneration in 17th-century Denmark. Jacobsen's other works include Nels Lyhne (1880, tr. 1919), a semiautobiographical work about a dreamer unable to cope with the realities of his life, several novellas, and a volume of poems. His nation's first naturalist novelist,...
  • Jensen, Johannes Vilhelm 1873-1950, Danish writer. As a young man he studied medicine; his interest in biology and anthropology is obvious throughout his works. Jensen created a distinctive literary form in his "myths," brief prose tales with an element of the essay. Selections have been translated as The Waving Rye (1958, tr. 1958). His works, numbering more than 60 volumes, include essays, travel books, and lyrical poems. His epic novel cycle The Long Journey (6 vol., 1908-22; tr., 3 vol., 1923-24), a fantasy based on Darwinian theory, traces the story of humans from primitive times to the age of Columbus. Jensen was awarded the 1944 Nobel Prize in...
  • Jochumsson, Matthías 1835-1920, Icelandic playwright, poet, and translator. Although Jochumsson was the founder of the modern drama in Iceland, with poetic plays such as Útilegumennirnir [the outlaws] (1864), he is best known as a lyric poet. After graduating from theological school he traveled abroad, returning to Iceland to work as a translator of Shakespeare, Byron, and Ibsen...
  • Johnson, Eyvind 1900-1976, Swedish novelist and short-story writer. After working as a laborer in the north of Sweden, Johnson moved to Stockholm in 1919 and began to write. He is best known outside Sweden for...
  • Kamban, Guðmundur 1888-1945, Icelandic dramatist and novelist. Many of Kamban's plays, among them Hadda-Padda (1914, tr. 1917), were produced in Denmark. His spirited and erudite historical novels, based upon the Icelandic...
  • Karlfeldt, Erik Axel 1864-1931, Swedish lyric poet. His work is representative of neoromanticism in the 1890s. Themes of nature, love, and life in the province of Dalarna predominate in Songs of the Wilderness and of Love...
  • Kielland, Alexander Lange 1849-1906, Norwegian novelist, short-story writer, and playwright. Two early volumes of short stories— Tales of Two Countries (1879, tr. 1891) and Norse Tales and Sketches (1897)—placed...
  • Krusenstjerna, Agnes von 1894-1940, Swedish novelist. Krusenstjerna's works reflect the aristocratic and emotionally disturbed background from which she came. She frequently portrayed the degeneracy of the society from...
  • Løland, Rasmus 1861-1907, Norwegian novelist. Løland, who suffered from poor health throughout his life, produced numerous works after a late start as a writer. His autobiographical novel Aasmund Arak (1902)...
  • Lagerkvist, Pär Fabian 1891-1974, Swedish poet, dramatist, and novelist. Lagerkvist is considered one of the most significant figures of modern Swedish literature. His central concern is the human soul, his main theme...
  • Lagerlöf, Selma 1858-1940, Swedish novelist. Her native Värmland is the background for many of her excellent stories, which deal with peasant life. Novels include The Story of Gösta Berling (1891, tr. 1898),...
  • Laxness, Halldór Kiljan 1902-98, Icelandic novelist, b. Reykjavík as Halldór Kiljan Gudjónsson. Although Laxness was converted to Roman Catholicism briefly, The Weaver of Cashmere (1927) expressed his disillusionment with Christianity. His sympathies turned toward socialism and communism and are reflected in later novels. Salka Valka (1931-32, tr. 1936), Independent People (1934-35, tr. 1945-46), and The Light of the World (1937-40, tr. 1969) deal with Icelandic peasant life and describe an endless search for independence. Set in the late 17th cent., the complex Iceland's Bell (1943, tr. 2003), has been considered both his bleakest work of fiction and the centerpiece of his oeuvre. Written in the great narrative tradition of the Icelandic epics, his novels set a new...
  • Lidman, Sara 1923-, Swedish writer. Her novels The Tar Still (1953), Cloudberry Land (1955), and The Rain Bird (1958, tr. 1962), treating rural life in N Sweden, established her reputation as a major writer....
  • Lie, Jonas Lauritz Idemil 1833-1908, Norwegian novelist, poet, and playwright. His writing deals with family life in diverse settings. The Pilot and His Wife (1874, tr. 1876), the first of his several sea tales, was the first...
  • Martinson, Harry 1904-78, Swedish writer. Orphaned early, Martinson was self-educated. His works reveal his appreciation of nature and his distrust of modern technological society. He is best known for his long...
  • Martinson, Helga Maria (Moa) 1890-1964, Swedish novelist and poet. The mother of five children before she was 25, Martinson began writing late; her first novel was Women and Apple Trees (1933, tr. 1985). My Mother Gets Married...
  • Moberg, Vilhelm 1898-1973, Swedish novelist and dramatist. Substantial recognition came with his partly autobiographical Knut Toring trilogy (1935-39; tr. The Earth is Ours, 1940). The historical novel Ride This...
  • Moe, Jørgen Engebretsen 1813-82, Norwegian folklorist and poet, bishop of Kristiansand. He collected and revised sagas and folk songs, and he collaborated with P. C. Asbjørnsen on the collection Norwegian Folk Stories...
  • Munk, Kaj 1898-1944, Danish playwright, a clergyman. His ethical plays, traditional in form, led the Danish dramatic revival in the 1930s. Among them is The Word (1932), which deals with resurrection and faith....
  • Nexø, Martin Andersen 1869-1954, Danish novelist. Born one of 11 children in a Copenhagen slum, he spent his impoverished childhood largely on the island of Bornholm. Both locales appear centrally in his novels. His...
  • Oehlenschläger, Adam Gottlob 1779-1850, Danish romantic poet and dramatist. Oehlenschläger turned for themes to the sagas and to Scandinavian history; he is known as the national poet of Denmark. His poem "The Golden Horns"...
  • Paludan-Müller, Frederik 1809-76, Danish poet. In Denmark he is widely regarded as a peer of Kierkegaard and Hans Christian Andersen. Among his earlier works are The Dancer (1833) and Cupid and Psyche (1834). His masterpiece,...
  • Pontoppidan, Henrik 1857-1943, Danish novelist. He shared the 1917 Nobel Prize in Literature with Gjellerup. Pontoppidan devoted himself to engineering, journalism, and travel before the appearance of his first major...
  • Runeberg, Johan Ludvig 1804-77, Finnish national poet. In 1837 he became a teacher of Latin and Greek at Porvoo near Helsinki. Runeberg's simple and realistic style helped to check the tendency toward false rhetoric in...
  • Rydberg, Abraham Viktor 1828-95, Swedish philosopher and writer. Singoalla (1857), a romantic and mystical story of medieval times, was his first major work. His polemical novel The Last Athenian (1859, tr. 1869) contrasted...
  • Söderberg, Hjalmar 1869-1941, Swedish writer. He is known for a lyrical but melancholic and disillusioned mood. Söderberg's first novel, Martin Birck's Youth (1901, tr. 1930), is the story of a dreamer living a...
  • Södergran, Edith Irene 1892-1923, Swedish poet, b. St. Petersburg, Russia. Södergran spent most of her adult life in poor health and in isolation in SE Finland near the Russian border. Dikter (1916), her first book,...
  • Sandel, Cora pseud. of Sara Fabricius, 1880-1974, Norwegian author. Her outstanding work is the Alberta Trilogy (1926-39, tr. 1965), a set of largely autobiographical novels about the life of a young woman from Norway who goes to Paris and becomes a writer. Her fiction is noted for its fine style and the...
  • Sillanpää, Frans Eemil 1888-1964, Finnish novelist. As a young man Sillanpää studied natural science at Helsinki and came under the influence of an artistic circle that included the composer Sibelius. He soon won...
  • Skram, Amalie 1846-1905, Norwegian writer. In Denmark, where she lived most of her life, Skram wrote Constance Ring (1885, tr. 1988), her first major novel and the first volume in her novel series about marriage...
  • Snorri Sturluson 1178-1241, Icelandic chieftain, historian, critic, and saga teller, the leading figure in medieval Norse literature. He was the author of the invaluable Prose Edda (see Edda ), a treatise on the art of poetry and a compendium of Norse mythology. His great saga the Heimskringla recounts the history of Norway to 1177; it combines traditional legend with substantial historical information and is of great literary merit. Snorri's sense of drama was outstanding, his mastery...