Norwegian Language and Literature

Norwegian literature has no finer display of comic fiction than his three immortal poems, "The Smith and the Baker," "The Dog-murder" and "The Fork," while a number of his pithy and pointed epigrams have long ago become classic. Nordahl Brun's fame with posterity rests less on the poetic value of his works than on the tradition of his striking personality, which in his lifetime made him the very embodiment of the national aspira tions of Norway; his famous song "To Norway, giants' country, hail," still sung, bears witness to it.

The Renaissance of 1814.

In literature this renaissance, in its first stage, was represented by three poets, Henrik Anker Bjerregaard (1792-1842), Mauritz Christopher Hansen 1842) and Conrad Nicolai Schwach (1793-1860). Bjerregaard was famous for his Sonner av Norge (Sons of Norway), written in 1820, which for half a century was the national anthem of Norway. His merry musical piece, A Highland Adventure is inspired by a genuine love of nature and a sound common sense.

Wergeland and Welhaven.

The commanding genius of this generation is Henrik Arnold Wergeland (1808-45) (q.v.), who, as has justly been said, contrived within the limits of a life as short as Byron's to concentrate the labours of a dozen ordinary men of letters. As a poet he is inspired alike by an intense love of nature. Besides larger poems, among which may especially be mentioned The English Pilot he has written in addition a quantity of lyrics with dramas, essays, historical works and journalistic articles—all stamped by his vivid imagination, his sound common sense and his high moral standard.

His contemporary, Johan Sebastian Cammermeyer Welhaven (1807-73), is primarily known for his highly critical nature, with its keen sense of beauty and harmony. His early poems are associated with his literary clash with Wergeland, but notwith standing the interest attached to them for their polemic character, the memory of Welhaven as a poet chiefly rests upon his beautiful romances. This romantic movement was evident about 1840 and it is the same spirit which led to the discovery of the folk-lore, with its wonderful prose and poetry, in which the soul of the nation and the nature of the country faithfully reflected themselves.

The ideal was that every piece of folk-lore should be rendered in the form given to it by the people in the course of time, and here the Norwegian nation was particularly fortunate. At the

right moment the two friends, Peter Christen Asbjornsen (1812 85) and Jorgen Moe (1813-82), whose names are for ever asso ciated with the Norwegian folk-tales which bid fair to challenge the most famous folk-tales in any European country, made their appearance in literature. Asbjornsen was a first-rate story-teller with a broad, jovial nature; Moe was a true poet with humour and a rare gift of self-criticism. There was also the Rev. Magnus Brostrup Landstad (1802-8o), who in 1853 published his famous collection, Norwegian Folk-Songs, the poetical part of the Nor wegian folk-lore of which the folk-tales constitute the prose. The former are older than the latter, and accordingly differ from them in several ways; but jointly they constitute what up to the middle of last century was "the missing link" between the eddas and the sagas on one side, and the literature of modern Norway on the other.

The Landsmaal Movement.

Along with this literary re vival there also set in a linguistic and historical renaissance of paramount importance to literature as a whole. In 1848 Ivar Aasen (1813-96) published a grammar and in 185o a dictionary of the Norwegian folk-language, whereby the intimate connection between the peasant dialects of the day and the Old Norse lan guage was revealed in the most convincing way. Some years after Aasen's appearance in literature the famous historian, Peter Andreas Munch (1810-63), published his mighty work, History of the Norwegian Nation (8 vols., 1852-63)—an event of para mount importance in the field of literature.

This Romantic movement leading to the foundation of the na tional stage in Norway, with Bjornson and Ibsen as the two pioneers (see DRAMA: Norway), it is easy to see why both of them turned to the saga period for suitable subjects and char acters. At the same time, however, realism had already set in.

During the '5os the Rev. Eilert Sundt (1817-75) started his epoch-making investigations of life and manners in the rural dis tricts, which made the Norwegian peasant appear in a light con siderably different from that in which he appeared in the flatter ing illumination of the former "peasant worship." Accordingly, Bjornson's famous peasant novels, the first of which was Syn nove Solbakken (1857), of a decidedly poetical turn, must be described as imbued by romanticism more than by realism so far as the outward surroundings are concerned.