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:
“People who are always praising the past
And especially the times of faith as best
Ought to go and live in the Middle Ages
And be burnt at the stake as witches and sages.”
—Stevie Smith (1902–1971)
“I feared these present years,
The middle twenties,
When deftness disappears,
And each event is
Freighted with a source-encrusting doubt,
And turned to drought.”
—Philip Larkin (1922–1986)
“The gods are partial to no era, but steadily shines their light in the heavens, while the eye of the beholder is turned to stone. There was but the sun and the eye from the first. The ages have not added a new ray to the one, nor altered a fibre of the other.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)