BJORNSON, BJORNSTJERNE Norwe gian poet, novelist and dramatist, was born at the farmstead of B j orgen, in Kvikne, in Osterdal, Norway. In 1837 his father, who had been pastor of Kvikne, was transferred to the parish of Noesset, in Romsdal; in this romantic district the childhood of Bjornson was spent. He matriculated at the University of Oslo in 1852, and soon began to work as a dramatic critic. In 1857 appeared Synnove Solbakken, the first of his peasant-novels; in 1858 this was followed by Arne, in 1860 by A Happy Boy, and in 1868 by The Fisher Maiden. These are the most important specimens of his bonde- f ortaellinger or peasant-tales.
Bjornson was anxious "to create a new saga in the light of the peasant," as he put it, and he thought this should be done, not merely in prose fiction, but in national dramas or folke-stykker. The earliest of these was a one-act piece, Between the Battles, written in 1855, but not produced until 1857. It was followed by Lame Hulda in 1858, and King Sverre in 1861, but these efforts were far excelled by the splendid trilogy of Sigurd the Bastard, which Bjornson issued in 1862. This raised him to the front rank among the younger poets of Europe. His Sigurd the Crusader should be added to the category of these heroic plays, although it was not printed until 1872.
At the close of 1857 Bjornson had been appointed director of the theatre at Bergen, a post which he held for two years, when he returned to the capital. From 1860 to 1863 he travelled widely throughout Europe. Early in 1865 he became manager of the Oslo theatre, and brought out his popular comedy of The Newly Married and his romantic tragedy of Mary Stuart in Scotland. Although Bjornson has introduced into his novels and plays songs of extraordinary beauty, he was never a very copious writer of verse; in 1870 he published his Poems and Songs and the epic cycle called Arnl jot Gelline; the latter volume con tains the magnificent ode called "Bergliot," B jornson's finest con tribution to lyrical poetry. In 1871 he began to supplement his journalistic work as a radical agitator by delivering lectures in the northern countries. His new departure as a dramatic author began with A Bankruptcy and The Editor in 1874, social dramas of a realistic cast.
The poet now settled on his estate of Aulestad in Gausdal. In 1877 he published another novel, Magnhild—an imperfect production, in which his ideas on social questions were seen to be in a state of fermentation, and gave expression to his repub lican sentiments in the polemical play called The King, to a later edition of which he prefixed an essay on "Intellectual Freedom," in further explanation of his position. Captain Mansana, an episode of the war of Italian independence, belongs to 1878. Ex tremely anxious to obtain a full success on the stage, Bjornson concentrated his powers on a drama of social life, Leonarda (1879)., which raised a violent controversy. A satirical play, The New System, was produced a few weeks later; but none of these plays of his second period (except A Bankruptcy) pleased on the boards, and when once more he produced a social drama, A Gauntlet, in 1883, he was unable to persuade any manager to stage it, except in a modified form, though this play gives the full measure of his power as a dramatist. In the autumn of the same year he published a mystical or symbolic drama Beyond our Powers, dealing with the abnormal features of religious ex citement with extraordinary force ; this was not acted until when it achieved a great success.
Meanwhile, B jornson's political attitude had brought upon him a charge of high treason, and he took refuge in Germany, returning to Norway in 1882. Convinced that the theatre was practically closed to him, he turned back to the novel, and published in 1884, Flags are Flying in Town and Port, embodying his theories on heredity and education. In 1889 he printed another long and still more remarkable novel, In God's Way, which is chiefly con cerned with the same problems. The same year saw the publica tion of a comedy, Geography and Love, which continues to be played with success. A number of short stories, of a more or less didactic character, dealing with startling points of emotional ex perience, were collected in 1894; among them those which pro duced the greatest sensation were Dust, Mother's Hands, and Absalom's Hair. Later plays were a political tragedy called Paul Lange and Tora Parsberg (1898), a second part of Beyond our Powers (1895), Laboremus (19o1), At Storhove (1902), and Daglannet Bjornson was one of the original members of the Nobel com mittee, and was awarded the Nobel prize for literature in 1903. He died on April 26 I 910.
See Bjornson's Samlede Digter-Verker (Christiania and Copen hagen, 1919-20) ; The Novels of Bjornstjerne Bjornson (1894), etc. edited by Edmund Gosse; G. Brandes, Critical Studies (1899) ; E. Tissot, Le drame norvegien (1893) ; C. D. of Wirsen, Kritiker (19o1) ; Chr. Collin, B jornst jerne Bjornson (German ed., 1903) ; and B. Hal vorsen, Norsk Forfatter Lexikon (1885). His Poems and Songs have been translated by A. Hubbell Palmer (1915) .