Full resolution (TIFF) - On this page / på denna sida - XXIII. Literature - A. The New Romanticism - B. The Gothic School
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The Gothic School 363
sources most of the hymns in the Swedish Hymn Book
of 1819. This hymn collection Geijer declared to be
one of the greatest any tongue can show. Tegner com-
pared it to the Old Testament Psalter, and called Wal-
lin "David’s Harp in the North."
His most notable poem is no doubt his swan song,
"The Angel of Death," which begins:
"Ye sons of Adam, of earth engendered,
Who shall return unto earth again,
Ye are my victims, your doom was rendered
When sin first entered the world of men."
It ends with the drying of all tears, the end of all pain,
the opening of the portals of immortality, the angel of
death becoming a seraph and joining with the redeemed
in the songs of praise before the throne of God.
B. THE GOTHIC SCHOOL
The Gothic Society. The New Romanticism did not
have to struggle alone very long against the faults and
weaknesses of the past. A sense of the danger that
threatened Sweden at the time of the deposition of
Gustavus IV, and grief over the loss of Finland made
a deep impression, especially on the young, and caused
a wave of patriotism to spread over the country side
by side with Romanticism. The central point of this
national awakening was the Gothic Society, organized
in 1811 in Stockholm by a few patriotic youths, mostly
from Vermland. Its chief aim was to review the old
Gothic love of freedom, courage, and sincerity, and
encourage the study of old Gothic history and tradi-
tion. In this society belonged a number of men who
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