1719 in Norway

• Monarch: Frederick IV

• January – The Carolean Death March.
• Postvesenet became state owned.

The roots of Norwegian literature reach back more than 1,000 years into the pagan Norse past. In its evolution, Norwegian literature was firmly intertwined with Icelandic literature and with Danish literature. Solely after the partition of Norway from Denmark in 1814 is it possible to point to literature that is unambiguously Norwegian. This page particularly focuses on literature produced from the 16th century ahead by writers of Norwegian birth in Bokmål (Dano-Norwegian; also called Riksmål) and, later, Nynorsk (New Norwegian). Since Norwegian literature and Icelandic literature are often indistinguishable in their earliest forms, both are examined together under Icelandic literature.

The political union between Denmark and Norway started in 1380, and Danish eventually became the official language and the most widely used literary medium. Copenhagen, with its university, established itself as the cultural capital of the two countries. Not until after the Reformation were there signs of significant literary activity in Norway itself—for example, Om Norgis rige (“Concerning the Kingdom of Norway”), a nostalgic apologia for Norway written in 1567 by Absalon Pederssøn Beyer.

The most original and most conspicuously Norwegian writer of this age was Petter Dass, whose Nordlands trompet (The Trumpet of Nordland) gives a lively picture in verse of the life of a clergyman and his part of the country; although probably completed before the turn of the century, this work was not printed until 1739.

Tormod Torfæus, known for Historia rerum Norvegicarum.

• 9 April 1575 – Absalon Pederssøn Beyer, Norwegian scholar and author (born c. 1528 in Norway).[1]
• 17 August 1707 – Petter Dass, Lutheran priest and Norwegian poet (born c. 1647 in Herøy, Nordland).[2]

• 23 May – Gerhard Treschow, merchant and industrial pioneer (born c. 1659).[3]
• 31 July – Thormodus Torfæus, historian (born 1636 in Iceland).[4]
• Nils Engelhart, priest, pietist pioneer (born c.1668).[5]