Runeberg, Johan Ludvig (y

`hän lŭd`vĭg rü`nəbĕryə), 1804–77, Finnish national poet. In 1837 he became a teacher of Latin and Greek at Porvoo near Helsinki. Runeberg's simple and realistic style helped to check the tendency toward false rhetoric in Scandinavian literature. His first long work was the realistic peasant epic The Elk Hunters (1832). The excellent lyric epic King Fjalar (1844, tr. 1904), an unrhymed verse cycle based on Scandinavian legend, is pervaded by a sense of inexorable tragedy. The first song from Runeberg's great poem on the Russo-Swedish War of 1808–9, "The Tales of Ensign Stål" (1848–60, tr. 1925, 1938), has been adopted as the Finnish national anthem. Like other Finnish authors of his day, Runeberg wrote in Swedish.

Runeberg, Johan Ludvig

(born Feb. 5, 1804, Jakobstad, Swedish Finland—died May 6, 1877, Borgå, Russian Finland) Finnish poet who wrote in Swedish. During an interruption in his academic career, he became a tutor at a country estate, where he encountered Finland's landscape and tales of the heroic past. His works, combining classicism with Romantic feeling and an understanding of peasant life and character, include the epic poems The Moose Hunters (1832) and Hanna (1836), which won him a place in Swedish letters; and Kung Fjalar, a cycle of romances derived from old legends. His patriotic poem “Our Country,” from Tales of Ensign Stål (1848, 1860), became the Finnish national anthem. Runeberg is considered Finland's national poet.