problem) can, of course, give no conception of the charm, the color, and
the wonderful poetic afflatus of this exquisite little play. It may be
well enough to say that such a situation is far-fetched and not very
typical--that outside of "The Heavenly Twins," _et id omne genus_, wives
who insist upon remaining maidens are not very frequent; but, in spite
of this drawback, the vividness and emotional force of the dialogue and
the beautiful characterization (particularly of the old governor and his
wife) set certain sweet chords in vibration, and carry the play to a
triumphant issue.
As a school-boy I witnessed the first performance of "The Newly
Married," at the Christiania Theatre (1865), (as, indeed, of all the
Björnsonian dramas up to 1869); and I yet remember my surprise when,
instead of mail-clad Norse warriors, carousing in a sooty, log-built
hall, the curtain rose upon a modern interior, in which a fashionably
attired young lady kissed a frock-coated old gentleman. It was a dire
disappointment to me and my comrade, who had come thirsting for gore.
But how completely the poet conquered us! Each phrase seemed to woo our
reluctant ears, and the pulse of life that beat in the characters and
carried along the action awakened in us a delighted recognition. Truth
to tell, we had but the very vaguest idea of what was the _prima causa
malorum_; but for all that, with the rest of the audience, we were
immensely gratified that the upshot of it all was so satisfactory.
During the years 1865-67 Björnson occupied the position of artistic
director of the Christiania Theatre, and edited the illustrated weekly
paper, _Norsk Folkeblad_ ("The Norwegian People's Journal"). As the
champion of Norwegian nationality in literature, and on the stage, he
unfolded an amazing activity. In 1870 he published "Arnljot Gelline," a
lyrical epic, relating, in a series of poems of irregular metres, the
story of the pagan marauder of that name, and his conversion to
Christianity by King Olaf the Saint. Never has he found a more daring
and tremendous expression for the spirit of old Norse paganism than in
this powerful but somewhat chaotic poem. Never has anyone gazed more
deeply into the ferocious heart of the primitive, predatory man, whose
free, wild soul had not yet been tamed by social obligations and the
scourge of the law. In the same year (1870) was published the now
classical collection of "Poems and Songs" (_Digte og Sange_), which, it
is no exaggeration to say, marks a new era in the Norwegian lyric. Among
Björnson's predecessors there are but two lyrists of the first order,
viz., Wergeland and Welhaven. The former was magnificently profuse and
chaotic, abounding in verve and daring imagery, but withal
high-sounding, declamatory, and, at his worst, bombastic. There is a
reminiscence in him of Klopstock's inflated rhetoric; and a certain
dithyrambic ecstasy--a strained, high-keyed aria-style which sometimes
breaks into falsetto. His great rival, Welhaven, was soberer, clearer,
more gravely melodious. He sang in beautiful, tempered strains, along
the middle octaves, never ranging high into the treble or deep into the
base. There is a certain Tennysonian sweetness, artistic self-restraint,
and plastic simplicity in his lyrics; just as there is in Wergeland's
reformatory ardor, his noble rage, and his piling up of worlds, æons,
and eternities a striking kinship to Shelley. But both these poets,
though their patriotism was strong, were intellectually Europeans,
rather than Norwegians. The roots of their culture were in the general
soil of the century, whose ideas they had absorbed. Their personalities
were not sufficiently tinged with the color of nationality to give a
distinctly Norse cadence to their voices. Wergeland seems to me like a
man who was desperately anxious to acquire a national accent; but
somehow never could catch the trick of it. As regards Welhaven, he was
less aware of his deficiency (if deficiency it was); but was content to
sing of Norse themes in a key of grave, universal beauty. Of the new
note that came into the Norwegian lyric with Björnson, I can discover no
hint in his predecessors. Such a poem as, for instance, "Nils Finn,"
with its inimitably droll refrain--how utterly inconceivable it would be
in the mouth of Wergeland or Welhaven! The new quality in it is as
unexplainable as the poem itself is untranslatable. It has that
inexpressible cadence and inflection of the Norse dialect which you feel
(if you have the conditions for recognizing it) in the first word a
Norseman addresses to you. It has that wonderful twang of the Hardanger
fiddle, and the color and sentiment of the ballads sung and the
legendary tales recited around the hearth in a Norwegian homestead
during the long winter nights. With Björnson it was in the blood. It was
his soul's accent, the dialect of his thought, the cadence of his
emotion. And so, also, is the touching minor undertone in the poem, the
tragic strain in the half burlesque, which is again so deeply Norwegian.
Who that has ever been present at a Norse peasant wedding has failed to
be struck with the strangely melancholy strain in the merriest dances?
And in Landstad's collection of "Norwegian Ballads" there is the same
blending of humor and pathos in such genuine folk-songs as _Truls med
bogin, Mindre Alf_, and scores of others. To this day I cannot read
"Nils Finn," humorous though it is, without an almost painful emotion.
All Norway, with a host of precious memories, rises out of the mist of
the past at the very first verse:
"Og vetli Nils Finn skuldi ut at gå,
Han fek inki ski 'i tel at hanga på
--'Dat var ilt' sa'd 'uppundir.'"
Neither Wergeland nor Welhaven nor any other poet has with all his
rapturous description of fjord, valley, and mountain, this power to
conjure up the very soul of the Norseland. The purely juvenile rhymes of
Björnson, such as _Killebukken, Lokkeleg_ and _Haren og Raeven_ ("The
Hare and the Fox"), are significant because of the masterly security
with which they strike the national key and keep it. Not a word is there
that rings false. And with what an exquisite tenderness the elegaic
ballad strain is rendered in _Venevil_ and "Hidden Love" (_Dulgt
Kaerlighed_), and the playful in the deliciously girlish roguery of
_Vidste du bare_ ("If you only knew"), and the bold dash and young
wantonness of "Marit's Song!"
It seems to me that every Norseman's life, whether he is willing to
acknowledge it or not, has been made richer and more beautiful by this
precious volume. It contains a legacy to the Norwegian people which can
never grow old. If Björnson had written nothing else, he would still be
the first poet of Norway. How brazen, hollow, and bombastic sound the
patriotic lyrics of Bjerregaard Johan Storm Munch, S. O. Wolff, etc.,
which are yet sung at festal gatherings, by the side of Björnson's "Yes,
we Love our Native Country," and "I will Guard Thee, my Land!" There is
the brassy blare of challenging trumpets in the former; they defy all
creation, and make a vast deal of impotent and unprofitable noise about
"The roaring northern main," "The ancient Norway's rocky fastness,"
"Liberty's temple in Norroway's valleys," and "Norway's lion, whose axe
doth threaten him who dares break the Northland's peace."
Not a suggestion of this juvenile braggadocio is there to be found in
Björnson. Calm, strong, and nobly aglow with love of country, he has no
need of going into paroxysms in order to prove his sincerity. To those
who regard the declamatory note as indispensable to a national hymn (as
we have it, for instance, in "Hail, Columbia," and "The Star-spangled
Banner") the low key in which Björnson's songs are pitched will no doubt
appear as a blemish. But it is their very homeliness in connection with
the deep, full-throbbing emotion which beats in each forceful phrase--it
is this, I fancy, which has made them the common property of the whole
people, and thus in the truest sense national. I could never tell why my
heart gives a leap at the sound of the simple verse:
"Yes, we love this land of ours,
Rising from the foam,
Rugged, furrowed, weather-beaten,
With its thousand homes."
Kjerulf's glorious music is, no doubt, in a measure accountable for it;
but even apart from that, there is a strangely moving power in the
words. The poem, as such, is by no means faultless. It is easy to pick
flaws in it. The transition from the fifth and sixth lines of the first
verse: "Love it, love it, and think of our father and mother," to the
seventh and eighth, "And the saga night which makes dreams to descend
upon our earth," is unwarrantably forced and abrupt. And yet who would
wish it changed? It may be admitted that there is no very subtle art in
the rude rhyme:
"I will guard thee, my land,
I will build thee, my land,
I will cherish my land in my prayer, in my child!
I will foster its weal,
And its wants I will heal
From the boundary out to the ocean wild;"
but, for all that, it touches a chord in every Norseman's breast, which
never fails to vibrate responsively.
As regards Björnson's prosody, I am aware that it is sometimes
defective. Measured by the Tennysonian standard it is often needlessly
rugged and eccentric. But a poet whose bark carries so heavy a cargo of
thought may be forgiven if occasionally it scrapes the bottom. Moreover,
the Norwegian tongue has never, as a medium of poetry, been polished and
refined to any such elaborate perfection as the English language
exhibits in the hands of Swinburne and Tennyson.
The saga-drama, "Sigurd the Crusader," which was also published in 1870,
is a work of minor consequence. Its purpose may be stated in the
author's own words:
"'Sigurd the Crusader' is meant to be what is called a 'folk-play.'
It is my intention to make several dramatic experiments with grand
scenes from the sagas, lifting them into a strong but not too heavy
frame. By a 'folk-play' I mean a play which should appeal to every
eye and every stage of culture, to each in its own way, and at the
performance of which all, for the time being, would experience the
joy of fellow-feeling. The common history of a people is best
available for this purpose--nay, it ought dramatically never to be
treated otherwise. The treatment must necessarily be simple and the
emotions predominant; it should be accompanied with music, and the
development should progress in clear groups....
"The old as well as the new historic folk literature will, with its
corresponding comic element, as I think, be a great gain to the
stage, and will preserve its connection with the people where this
has not already been lost--so that it be no longer a mere
institution for amusement, and that only to a single class. Unless
we take this view of our stage, it will lose its right to be
regarded as a national affair, and the best part of its purpose, to
unite while it lifts and makes us free, will be gradually assumed
by some other agency. Nor shall we ever get actors fit for anything
but trifles, unless we abandon our foreign French tendency as a
_leading_ one and substitute the national needs of our own people
in its place."
It would be interesting to note how the poet has attempted to solve a
problem so important and so difficult as this. In the first place, we
find in "Sigurd the Crusader" not a trace of a didactic purpose beyond
that of familiarizing the people with its own history, and this, as he
himself admits in the preface just quoted, is merely a secondary
consideration. He wishes to make all, irrespective of age, culture, and
social station, feel strongly the bond of their common nationality; and,
with this in view, he proceeds to unroll to them a panorama of simple
but striking situations, knit together by a plot or story which, without
the faintest tinge of sensationalism, appeals to those broadly human and
national sympathies which form the common mental basis of Norse
ignorance and Norse culture. He seizes the point in the saga where the
long-smouldering hostility between the royal brothers, Sigurd the
Crusader and Eystein, has broken into full blaze, and traces, in a
series of vigorously sketched scenes, the intrigue and counter-intrigue
which hurry the action onward toward its logically prepared climax--a
mutual reconciliation. The dialogue is pithy, simple, and sententious.
Nevertheless the play, as a whole, makes the impression of
incompleteness. It is a dramatic sketch rather than a drama. It marks no
advance on Björnson's previous work in the same line; but perhaps rather
a retrogression.
II
A period is apt to come in the life of every man who is spiritually
alive, when his scholastic culture begins to appear insufficient and the
traditional premises of existence seem in need of readjustment and
revision. This period, with the spiritual crisis which it involves, is
likely to occur between the thirtieth and the fortieth meridian. Ibsen
was thirty-four years old (1862) when in "The Comedy of Love" he broke
with the romanticism of his youth, and began to wrestle with the
problems of contemporary life. Goethe was thirty-seven when, in 1786, he
turned his back upon the Storm and Stress, and in Italy sought and
gained a new and saner vision of the world. This renewal of the sources
which water the roots of his spiritual being becomes an imperative
necessity to a man when he has exhausted the sources which tradition
supplies. It is terrible to wake up one morning and see one's past life
in a new and strange illumination, and the dust of ages lying inch-thick
upon one's thoughts. It is distressing to have to pretend that you do
not hear the doubt which whispers early and late in your ear, _Vanitas,
vanitas, vanitas vanitatum_. Few are those of us who have the courage to
face it, to rise up and fight with it, and rout it or be routed by it.
Björnson had up to this time (1870) built solely upon tradition. He had
been orthodox, and had exalted childlike peace and faith above doubt and
struggle. Phrases indicative of a certain spiritual immaturity are
scattered through his early poems. In "The Child in our Soul," he says,
for instance: "The greatest man on earth must cherish the child in his
soul and listen, amid the thunder, to what it whispers low;" and again:
"Everything great that thought has invented sprouted forth in childlike
joy; and everything strong, sprung from what is good, obeyed the child's
voice." Though in a certain sense that may be true enough, it belongs to
the kind of half-truths which by constant repetition grow pernicious
and false. The man who at forty assumes the child's attitude of mere
wondering acceptance toward the world and its problems, may, indeed, be
a very estimable character; but he will never amount to much. It is the
honest doubters, the importunate questioners, the indefatigable fighters
who have broken humanity's shackles, and made the world a more
comfortable abiding-place to the present generation than it was to the
past. There is unquestionably a strain of Danish romanticism in
Björnson's persistent harping upon childlike faith and simplicity and a
childlike vision of the world. Grundtvig, with whom this note is
pervasive, had in his early youth a great influence over him. The
glorification of primitive feeling was part of the romantic revolt
against the dry rationalism of the so-called period of enlightenment.
To account for the fact that so mighty a spirit as Björnson could have
reached his thirty-eighth year before emerging from this state of
idyllic _naïveté_, I am inclined to quote the following passage from
Brandes, descriptive of the condition of the Scandinavian countries
during the decade preceding 1870:
"While the intellectual life languished, as a plant droops in a close,
confined place, the people were self-satisfied--though not with a joyous
or noisy self-satisfaction; for there was much sadness in their minds
after the great disasters [the Sleswick-Holstein War].... They rested
on their laurels and fell into a doze. And while they dozed they had
dreams. The cultivated, and especially the half-cultivated, public in
Denmark and Norway dreamed that they were the salt of Europe. They
dreamed that by their idealism--the ideals of Grundtvig and
Kierkegaard--and their strong vigilance, they regenerated the foreign
nations. They dreamed that they were the power which could rule the
world, but which, for mysterious and incomprehensible reasons, had for a
long series of years preferred to eat crumbs from the foreigners' table.
They dreamed that they were the free, mighty North, which led the cause
of the peoples to victory--and they woke up unfree, impotent,
ignorant."[5]
[5] Brandes: Det Moderne Gjennembrud's Maend, pp. 44, 45.
Though there is a good deal of malice, there is no exaggeration in this
unflattering statement. Scandinavia had by its own choice cut itself off
from the cosmopolitan world life; and the great ideas which agitated
Europe found scarcely an echo in the three kingdoms. In my own boyhood,
which coincides with Björnson's early manhood, I heard on all hands
expressions of self-congratulation because the doubt and fermenting
restlessness which were undermining the great societies abroad had never
ruffled the placid surface of our good, old-fashioned, Scandinavian
orthodoxy. How heartily we laughed at the absurdities of Darwin, who, as
we had read in the newspapers, believed that he was descended from an
ape! How deeply, densely, and solidly ignorant we were; and yet how
superior we felt in the midst of our ignorance!
All this must be taken into account, if we are to measure the
significance, as well as the courage, of Björnson's apostasy. For five
years (1870-74) he published nothing of an æsthetical character. But he
plunged with hot zeal into political life, not only because he needed an
outlet for his pent-up energy; but because the question at issue engaged
him, heart and soul. The equal and co-ordinate position of Norway and
Sweden under the union had been guaranteed by the Constitution of 1814;
but, as a matter of fact, the former kingdom is by all the world looked
upon as a dependency, if not a province, of the latter. The Bernadottes,
lacking comprehension of the Norwegian character, had shown themselves
purblind as bats in their dealings with Norway. They had mistaken a
perfectly legitimate desire for self-government for a demonstration of
hostility to Sweden and the royal house; and instead of identifying
themselves with the national movement (which they might well have done),
they fought it, first by cautious measures of repression, and later by
vetoes and open defiance. Charles XV., and, later, Oscar II., kept the
minority ministries, Stang and Selmer, in power, with a bland disregard
of popular condemnation, and snapped their fingers at the parliamentary
majorities which, for well-nigh a quarter of a century, fought
persistently, bravely, and not altogether vainly, for their country's
rights.
There is no doubt that Norway is the most democratic country in Europe,
if not in the world. There is a far sturdier sense of personal worth, a
far more fearless assertion of equality, and a far more democratic
feeling permeating society than, for instance, in the United States.
Sweden, on the other hand, is essentially an aristocratic country, with
a landed nobility and many other remnants of feudalism in her political
and social institutions. Two countries so different in character can
never be good yoke-fellows. They can never develop at an even pace, and
the fact of kinship scarcely helps matters where the temperaments and
the conditions are so widely dissimilar. Brothers who fall out are apt
to fight each other the more fiercely on account of the relationship.
Björnson certainly does not cherish any hatred of Sweden, nor do I
believe that there is any general animosity to the Swedish people to be
found anywhere in Norway. It is most unfortunate that the mistaken
policy of the Bernadottes has placed the two nations in an attitude of
apparent hostility. In spite of the loud denunciation of Norway by the
so-called Grand Swedish party, and the equally vociferous response of
the Norwegian journals (of the Left) there is a strong sympathy between
the democracy of Norway and that of Sweden, and a mutual respect which
no misrepresentation can destroy.
It was Björnson who, in 1873, began the agitation for the actual and
not merely nominal, equality of the two kingdoms;[6] he appealed to the
national sense of honor, and by his kindling eloquence aroused the
tremendous popular indignation that swept the old ministry of Stang from
power, and caused the impeachment and condemnation of the Selmer
ministry. It would seem when the king, in 1882, charged the liberal
leader, Mr. Johan Sverdrup, to form a ministry, that parliamentarism had
actually triumphed. But unhappily a new Stang ministry (the chief of
which is the son of the old premier) has, recently (1893) re-established
the odious minority rule, which sits like a nightmare upon the nation's
breast, checking its respiration, and hindering its natural development.
[6] I had the pleasure of accompanying Björnson on his first
political tour in the summer of 1873, and I shall never forget the
tremendous impression of the man and his mighty eloquence at the
great folk-meeting at Böe in Guldbrandsdalen.
During this period of national self-assertion Björnson has unfolded a
colossal activity. Though holding no office, and steadily refusing an
election to the Storthing, he has been the life and soul of the liberal
party. The task which he had undertaken grew upon his hands, and assumed
wider and wider dimensions. As his predecessor Wergeland had done, and
in a far deeper sense, he consecrated his life to the spiritual and
intellectual liberation of his people. It is told of the former that he
was in the habit of walking about the country with his pockets full of
seeds of grass and trees, of which he scattered a handful here and a
handful there; for, he said, you can never tell what will grow up after
it. There is to me something quite touching in the patriotism which
prompted this act. Björnson, too, is in the same sense "a sower who went
forth for to sow." And the golden grain of his thought falls, as in the
parable, in all sorts of places; but, unlike some of the seed in the
parable, it all leaves some trace behind. It stimulates reflection, it
awakens life, it arouses the torpid soul, it shakes the drowsy soul, it
shocks the pious soul, it frightens the timid soul, but it lifts them
all, as it were, by main force, out of themselves, and makes healthful
breezes blow, and refreshing showers fall upon what was formerly a
barren waste. This is Björnson's mission; this is, during the second
period of his career, his greatness and his highest significance.
Of course there are many opinions as to the value of the work he has
accomplished in this capacity of political and religious liberator. The
Conservative party of Norway, which runs the errands of the king and
truckles to Sweden, hates him with a bitter and furious hatred; the
clergy denounce him, and the official bureaucracy can scarcely mention
his name without an anathema. But the common people, though he has
frightened many of them away by his heterodoxy, still love him. It is
especially his disrespect to the devil (whom he professes not to believe
in) which has been a sore trial to the Bible-reading, hymn-singing
peasantry. Does not the Bible say that the devil goes about like a
roaring lion seeking whom he may devour? Nevertheless Björnson has the
hardihood to assert that there is no such person. And yet Björnson is a
man who can talk most beautifully, and who knows as much as any parson.
It is extremely puzzling.