RELIGIOUS POETRY OF THE AGE OF REFORMATION IN SCANDINAVIA

Abstract

The article deals with development of the religious poetry in Sweden, Denmark and Iceland in 16th century. The Lutheran Reformation brought new poetic forms to the national literary traditions; it was initially connected to changes in church services which would be provided in domestic language understandable to the common people. The one of the most important parts of Lutheran Divine services is singing of hymns. Lutheran hymns can be considered as the first examples of stable lyrical forms in the literatures of Denmark and Sweden. The first examples of Lutheran hymns in Scandinavia were translations from Latin and German directly connected to Biblical tradition. Since the middle of 16th century the religious hymn became not only the most popular poetic genre in Scandinavia but one of the most important sign of national culture. The development of national lyrical forms of that time and in later periods in Denmark and Sweden directly connected with hymnal poetry, but on the contrary in Iceland the national poetic tradition was more inflectional till the beginning of 19th century. That time the first collections of hymns were published in Danish, Swedish and Icelandic and some of them were basis for the official collection of hymns in Protestant churches of Scandinavian countries. The one of the most important features of a Lutheran hymn is its inconstancy because the text should be understandable for prayers and once written hymn had several rewritings in different historical periods.