SOURCE: Kuhn, Hans. “Saxo Grammaticus.” Scandinavian Studies, 68, no. 2 (spring 1996): 242-50.

In the following essay, Kuhn reviews the wide range of papers submitted to the international Saxo conference held in Bologna, Italy, in September 1990 and collected in Saxo Grammaticus: Tra storiografia e litteratura.

Saxo Grammaticus: Tra storiografia e letteratura. Bevagna, 27-29 settembre 1990. A cura di Carlo Santini. Roma: Il Calamo, 1992 (I Convegni di Classiconorroena, 1). Pp. 441. 100,000 lire.

Saxo, the late twelfth-century cleric who, at the behest of bishop Absalon, provided the expanding Danish kingdom of the Valdemars with a heroic account of the country's history, has had a European presence ever since his Gesta Danorum were printed in Paris in 1514, notably after one of his princes, Amlethus, had become the protagonist of Shakespeare's best-known play. Saxo was an inspiration for the Danish and Scandinavian national revival of the nineteenth century with Grundtvig's 1818-23 translation as a typical expression. The critical...