Apotheosis of the North: The Swedish Appropriation of Classical Antiquity around the Baltic Sea and Beyond (1650 to 1800)

Description

Despite its enormous extent and impact, the Swedish scholarship produced in the context of Olof Rudbeck's monumental 'Atlantica' (4 vols, 1679-1702) has hitherto escaped attention outside Scandinavia. The present volume explores the numerous disciplines that comprised this, one of the last, but grandest appropriations of the classical heritage in early modern times. In the decades around 1700, dozens of scholars all around the Baltic Sea embarked on studies of classical and Norse mythology, material remains and antiquities, of languages, botany and zoology as well as biblical scholarship, in order to reveal the primordial status of ancient Sweden. Fusing together numerous disciplines within Rudbeck's elaborate and all-encompassing epistemological framework, they gave to a nation that had advanced to the rank of a European superpower a narrative of a glorious past that matched its contemporary pretentions. Presenting case studies stretching from the 17th to the 19th century and across a wide number of fields, this volume traces the extent and 'longue durée' of one of the most fascinating and underestimated episodes in European intellectual history. Foreword v Bernd Roling, Introduction 1 Bernhard Schirg, Phoenix going Bananas. The Swedish Appropriation of a Classical Myth, and its Demise in Botanical Scholarship (Engelbert Kaempfer, Carl Linnaeus) 17 Stefan Heinrich Bauhaus, Olof Rudbeck the Younger’s "Oförgripelige tankar om amerikanska språket" 47 Peter Sjökvist, Petrus Lagerlöf Instructing on Gothicism 63 Annie Burman, Language Comparison before Comparative Linguistics: Theories of Language Change and Classification in Olof Rudbeck’s "Atlantica" 77 Outi Merisalo, "Musta minä muiden nähden / walkia oman emännän, id est niger ego aliis, candidus propriae uxori videor". Daniel Juslenius zur finnischen Kulturgeschichte 95 Vera Johanterwage, She "lät illa i sömnen"!? How Eric Julius Biörner can still be read with profit – and even delight 107 Christian Peters, Ablaze in the Northern Sky: Tears of Amber and the Relocation of Ovidian Myth to the Baltic Sea 137 Sofia Guthrie, Goths, Gauls and Franks in Antoine Garissoles' "Adolphid" (1649): How to rewrite the ancient history of Sweden 175 Benjamin Hübbe, The Fauna of Fallen Babylon – Carl Aurivillius on the Animals in Isaiah 13:21 and the Task of Bible Hermeneutics 187 Bernd Roling, Rudbeck and Oriental Studies: How Sanscrit studies transformed national myth 221 Index 243