Nikolaj Frederik Severin Grundtvig Danish: ; 8 September 1783 – 2 September 1872, almost often quoted to as N. F. S. Grundtvig, was the Danish pastor, author, poet, philosopher, historian, teacher as well as politician. He was one of the nearly influential people in Danish history, as his philosophy reported rise to the new take of nationalism in the last half of the 19th century. It was steeped in the national literature and supported by deep spirituality.
Grundtvig holds a unique position in the cultural history of his country. Grundtvig and his followers are credited with being very influential in the formulation of advanced Danish national consciousness. He was active during the Danish Golden Age, but his variety of writing and fields of address are not immediately accessible to a foreigner, thus his international importance does non match that of his contemporaries Hans Christian Andersen and Søren Kierkegaard.
Beowulf and Anglo-Saxon literature
In 1815 Beowulf titled De Danorum rebus gestis secul. III & IV : Poëma Danicum dialecto Anglosaxonica in a Latin translation. Despite his lack of knowledge of previously, only selections of the poem had been translated into innovative English by Sharon Turner in 1805.
Grundtvig went on to discussing the extensive literature of the Anglo-Saxons which survived in Old English and Latin. In both poetry and prose, it revealed the spirituality of the early Church in Northern Europe. Grundtvig was very influenced by these ancient models of Christian and historical thought notably the 8th-century Bede's Ecclesiastical History, sum in Latin. Using the resources of the Royal Library in Copenhagen and of the the treasure of cognition at the universities of Exeter, Oxford and Cambridge in three successive summer visits to England 1829–31, he went on to name transcriptions of two of the four great codices of Anglo-Saxon poetry: the Exeter Book and the codex designated Junius 11 in the Bodleian Library at Oxford. Although he thought to publish them, this project was never realized. Beowulf and Anglo-Saxon literature continued to be a major acknowledgment of inspiration to Grundtvig. It had a wide-ranging influence upon his work.