A History of Finland's Literature

`

A History of Finland's Literature

Edited with an introduction by George C. Schoolfield

Histories of Scandinavian Literature Series

877 pages
maps

Hardcover

November 1998

978-0-8032-4189-3

$75.00 Add to Cart

About the Book

The literature of Finland is bilingual, with lively and extensive traditions in both Finnish and Swedish. This history covers both literary traditions in detail. The volume’s first section, on Finnish-language literature, consists of a series of connected chapters by leading authorities within the field. It opens with a consideration of the folk literature in Finnish that flourished during the Middle Ages and then examines the more recent history of Finnish-language literature, with special emphasis placed on writings from the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.

The second part of the book provides an examination of Finland’s Swedish-language literature from the late fifteenth century through the early nineteenth century. Subsequent chapters trace developments in Finland’s Swedish-language literature during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.

A survey of children’s literature—from both the Finnish- and Swedish-language traditions—concludes this exceptionally thorough volume.

Author Bio

George C. Schoolfield is a professor emeritus of German and Scandinavian literatures at Yale University. He is the former editor of Scandinavian Studies and author of many books on Finland’s literature and cultural history, most recently Helsinki of the Czars: A Cultural History, 1808–1918.

Awards

Winner of the Tollander Prize from the Swedish Literary Society in Finland