Latin
Several early Swedish works were written in Latin, but they are still considered part of Swedish literature history.
It was the Christian field that gave birth to most literature in the ensuing centuries. The monk Petrus de Dacia (ca 1230-1290) originated from a monastery on the island Gotland, south-east Sweden. The literature for which he is best known are his letters of admiration directed to the pious woman Christine of Cologne, Germany. de Dacia is generally regarded the first Swedish writer.
In the 14th century, one notable figure stands out: Saint Birgitta, a devoted Christian mystic, who had visions of Mother Mary, Christ, or some other apostle or saint. Her complete writings were published as Revelaciones celestes in 1492, and they have since been translated to several languages.
Read more about this topic: Early Swedish Literature
Famous quotes containing the word latin:
“He tries by a peculiar speech to speak
The peculiar potency of the general,
To compound the imagination’s Latin with
The lingua franca et jocundissima.”
—Wallace Stevens (1879–1955)
“It is worth the expense of youthful days and costly hours, if you learn only some words of an ancient language, which are raised out of the trivialness of the street, to be perpetual suggestions and provocations. It is not in vain that the farmer remembers and repeats the few Latin words which he has heard.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“But these young scholars, who invade our hills,
Bold as the engineer who fells the wood,
And travelling often in the cut he makes,
Love not the flower they pluck, and know it not
And all their botany is Latin names.
The old men studied magic in the flowers.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)