National Renaissance and Nordic Resonance: Language History and Poetic Diction in Nineteenth-Century Sweden

Abstract

"In nineteenth-century Sweden, the concept of the “voice of the past” was both literal and figurative. As in most other European countries, the turn of the century brought a national reawakening, as the cosmopolitan Enlightenment culture of the preceding Gustavian Age was devalued and the true roots of the national culture were sought, primarily in its Old Norse and medieval heritage.... Old Norse was, literally, a familiar sound for the Swedes; at the same time, however, it means something less trivial, the “voice” in question being the testimony to a way of life and a mentality that supposedly unites the speakers of the original language with their modern-day descendants. Pronouncements such as these point to a particular idea of cultural resonance, according to which the sounds of the national language are connected to the essence of the national culture, and the memory of its past can be made to resound in modern creations. I will trace this idea in nineteenth-century Sweden, from its beginnings as a general trope in romanticism, through the effects of new scholarship on language history, to a philologically informed poetic style."