Grundtvigs rimbreve

Abstract

Notes on Grundtvig’s Rhymed Epistles

By Gustav Albeck

In Danish poetry the genre of the rhymed epistle emerged in the Baroque with poets like Bording and Kingo, and it was still flourishing at the beginning of the 17th century (Reenberg, Skandrup, and Sorterup). In the last decades of the 18th century the genre was revived through Baggesen’s Skiemtsomme Rimbreve. Grundtvig, who was partial to archaic genres, quite early tried his hand as a writer of rhymed epistles. During the period of literary controversies, 1815- 1824, he wrote several rhymed epistles of literary satire, in which, with varied success, he attempted to imitate the style of Baggesen’s rhymed epistles.

His serious and religious rhymed epistles from 1811 to 1813 are marked by a more personal touch. Their simple style and metrical form seems to have been influenced by Jonas Rein. Whenever, in the period of the controversies, he felt impelled to add power and seriousness to his rhymed epistles, he resumed the tone of the epistles inspired by Rein, and, as a rule, he gave those epistles a regular stanzaic form. Thus we may speak of Epistular Poems vs. Rhymed Epistles.

As early as from 1812, onwards, there is a tendency for Grundtvig to address his rhymed epistles (and epistular poems) to his friends among the Danish and Norwegian peoples rather than to individual persons. Grundtvig himself characterised his most impressive poem, Nyaars-Morgen ( 1824) as a rhymed epistle. He thus breaks down the limits of the genre, but returns to it again in another great poem, addressed to ‘sons and daughters of the Nordic Spirit’, namely the introductory poem of Nordens Mythologi, 1832, while, in Aabent Brev til mine Børn ( 1841 ), he writes a rhymed epistle whose central message is addressed to the whole people.