social improvement. There was at the same time a new drive for an
increased beauty of language and refinement of style, where the
classical, cultivated, literary language and the living speech of
the time merged. With Romanticism there also emerged poets of so
great merit that only a few such had come forward since the end of
the saga period. But henceforward--let's take as our point of
departure the second quarter of the nineteenth century--each
generation in the country has indeed produced some outstanding
literary works, comparable in quality with the accomplishments of
the ancient classical Edda and saga periods.

During this new golden age, several literary tendencies and genres
may be observed. But Romanticism remained the most lasting and
potent literary force for about a century. However, one of the
characteristics of the Icelandic literature of later ages is the
infrequent manifestation of literary trends in their purest and most
extreme forms. Here the stabilizing and moderating influence of the
ancient sagas has, without doubt, been at work. In most cases this
middle course may be said to have been beneficial to the literature.

But the saga-literature may also well have had a restraining
influence on later authors in so far as it set a difficult standard
to be emulated. It is probably here that the principal explanation
of the late re-emergence of prose fiction is to be sought. It was
not until about the middle of the nineteenth century that modern
short stories, novels and plays began to be written on anything like
a scale worthy of note. The earliest of these were romantic in
spirit, though most of them had a realistic tinge. With Realism, the
short story came into its own in the eighties and nineties of the
last century. This trend came like a fresh current to take its place