Swedish Reformation and Renaissance literature

The German Protestant Reformation had spread to Sweden by 1520, and resulted in the Swedish Reformation in 1527. The advent of the printing press facilitated a full translation of the Bible into Swedish in 1541. From a philological view, a new period in the development of the Swedish called Modern Swedish was initiated with the Bible translation. It also gave power to the vernacular language.

From a literary point of view, the period between 1400 and 1600 produced little of note, especially during the 1520–1600.^[1][2] Yet, paradoxically, the Bible translation published 1541 is possibly the most significant Swedish book of all times. First and foremost, it had a great religious impact, but apart from that it also introduced the common man to a language beyond the common-day.^[3][4] The Bible was used in churches for around 400 years until the Bible translation of 1917, and meanwhile translations (in 1618 and 1712) were merely revisions and corrections.^[5]