Danish Literature - Middle Ages

Middle Ages

The earliest preserved texts from Denmark are runic inscriptions on memorial stones and other objects. Some of them contain short poems in alliterative verse.

The advent of Christianity in the 10th century brought Denmark into contact with European learning, including the Latin language and alphabet, but it was not until the late 12th century that this was to bear significant literary fruit in Gesta Danorum, an ambitious historical work by Saxo Grammaticus. Saxo's work is an important primary source for the study of Scandinavian myths and legends as well as a lively account of Danish history up to the author's own time. Other medieval literary works include the Danish ballads, recorded since the 16th century by aristocratic ladies in their manuscript albums. These led to the "Book of a Hundred Ballads (1591) published by Anders Sørensen Vedel, "Collection Tragica" (1695) by Metter Gøya and the "Book of a Hundred Ballads" by Peter Syv in 1695.

Read more about this topic:  Danish Literature

Famous quotes containing the words middle ages, middle and/or ages:

    Real socialism is inside man. It wasn’t born with Marx. It was in the communes of Italy in the Middle Ages. You can’t say it is finished.
    Dario Fo (b. 1926)

    If one really wishes to know how justice is administered in a country, one does not question the policemen, the lawyers, the judges, or the protected members of the middle class. One goes to the unprotected—those, precisely, who need the laws’s protection most!—and listens to their testimony.
    James Baldwin (1924–1987)

    In all her products, Nature only develops her simplest germs. One would say that it was no great stretch of invention to create birds. The hawk which now takes his flight over the top of the wood was at first, perchance, only a leaf which fluttered in its aisles. From rustling leaves she came in the course of ages to the loftier flight and clear carol of the bird.
    Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)