Imagining the North. Intercultural constructs of belonging in German and Swedish literature around 1800.

Abstract

At the end of the 18th century Herder had laid claim to Northern mythology also for Germany, arguing that there was a kindred with Scandinavian people. In the epoch of Sturm und Drang, the mythical image of the North conceived on the basis of Northern mythology developed and later found its way into the poetry of Romanticism. The German imagination of the North had a stimulating effect on Swedish poets of Romanticism, for instance on Atterbom and Geijer. In the German-Swedish intercultural communication the construct of the North plays a decisive role in the national self-understanding of the German and the Swedish people.