DRAMA
Calderon
Scandinavian Literature. Norway, Sweden, and Denmark are nations of the same race; their history, literature, and civilization are inseparably associated. Climate, racial character, historical developments, and other causes have combined to retard the growth of their literature. Apart from the sagas little of universal interest appeared until the nineteenth century, in which Ibsen created a sensation with his dramas of relentless criticism of the vanity and pettiness of life in the prosperous, democratic society of Norway.
POETRY
Ewald
Norse Lit.
FICTION
Andersen
Björnson
HISTORY
Norse Lit.
DRAMA
Ibsen
Russian Literature. In some respects more closely related to the East than to the West, and hampered by despotism until the twentieth century, Russia produced nothing of value until a century ago. The novelists mentioned below then began a series of vivid pictures of the struggle for freedom, knowledge, and civilization as opposed to tyranny, universal ignorance, and barbarism. Their work has a strong national flavor, coupled with a youthful energy and an enthusiasm for the mission of enlightenment that recalls the spirit of the Renaissance and its zeal for discovery and progress.
POETRY
Derzhavin
FICTION
Russian Lit.
Sienkiewicz
Tolstoi
Turgenieff