Scandinavian literature

Scandinavian literature, literature of Scandinavia (Denmark, Norway, and Sweden) and usually including Finland and Iceland, from the end of the Viking Age (c.1100) to the present. The peoples of Scandinavia speak closely related North Germanic languages, except those of Finland, whose language is related to Hungarian. Early literature of the 12th and 13th centuries captured works of the oral tradition in writing. These included heroic ballads of Denmark and Sweden, Icelandic poetry collected in the Poetic Edda, and heroic sagas of Iceland and Norway. There followed a period during which most writing was in Latin and was technical or religious. Literature in the vernacular and about everyday life reemerged in the 18th century, including writings of Swedish poet Carl Michael Bellman and Danish playwright Johannes Ewald. The interest in folk tales shown by the romantic movement of the early 19th century is evident in the epic poem Kalevala (1835; derived from Finnish legend), collections of tales in Norway, and the original tales of Hans Christian Andersen in Denmark. Other writers of the romantic movement were Norway's Bjørnstjerne Bjørnson (A Happy Boy, 1860) and Finland's Aleksis Kivi (Seven Brothers, 1870). Henrik Ibsen of Norway and August Strindberg of Sweden were playwrights of the realist movement of the late 19th century who had international influence. The modern period includes writings of Knut Hamsun of Norway (Hunger, 1890) and Selma Lagerlöf of Sweden (Gösta Berling's Saga, 1891), and more recently, Isak Dinesen of Denmark (Winter's Tales, 1942) and Nobel Prize winners Sigrid Undset of Norway (Kristin Lavransdatter trilogy, 1920–22) and Pär Fabian Lagerkvist of Sweden (Barabbas, 1950).