Among many Scandinavian candidates for fame in the province of fiction,
by far the most distinguished in our own day is the Norwegian,
Björnstjerne Björnson. He is a child of the mountains; it was in the
remote and romantic parish of Kvike, of which his father was priest,
that he was born on the 8th of December, 1832. In the bleak parsonage
high up in a ravine of the hills, the child led the solitary life which
he has described in the little story called _Blakken_. When he was six
years old, his father was transferred to Næsset, in the Romsdal, one of
the loveliest parishes in Norway, where the influences of natural
beauty and a full peasant society instantly began to mould the child's
poetic sensations. At the grammar school of Molde, Björnson was an
active, tiresome, and industrious boy; in whom, at about the age of
fifteen, a feeling for literature was suddenly awakened, by the reading
of Wergeland's poem, _The English Pilot_. At seventeen, he was sent to
a high school at Christiania, and in 1852 he entered the university. At
the age of twenty he began to write dramas in verse, none of which have
seen the light, and a little later he began to live by journalism in
the capital. His early career was one of struggle against privation and
disappointment. It was not until 1857 that Björnson made his literary
debut, with a little historic drama, called _Between the Battles_, and
with a novel, _Synnöve Solbakken_, of unprecedented charm and
freshness, an exceedingly naïve study of peasant life in Norway; of
this four or five separate translations exist in the English language.
He was now suddenly famous, and the great success of this book led the
author to write a similar, but perhaps a stronger novel, _Arne_, in
1858. Of this also many versions have been made. In 1860 followed
_Short Stories_, a volume including six tales, one of which, "A Happy
Boy," has been regarded as Björnson's most successful effort in this
line of peasant-romance. He proceeded to concentrate his attention on a
revival of the poetical drama, and wrote a succession of masterly
tragedies and a good comedy. His next novel, _The Fisher Maiden_, did
not appear until 1868.
Absorbed in dramatic work of various kinds, a short story called _The
Bridal March_, 1873, was Bjornson's only contribution to fiction for
several years. When he reappeared as a novelist, a great change in his
manner was discernible. In _Magnhild_, published in 1877, his exquisite
purity and simplicity of style had disappeared; this book was more
real, perhaps, but it was much more turbid and more speculative than
his early mountain romances. Björnson had been touched by the "novel of
experience," and had been troubled by it. _Captain Mansana_, a story of
the Italian war, was slight in character. Everything seemed to point to
the abandonment of prose fiction by Björnson, in favour of the drama,
in which he had made and was still making a series of paradoxical
successes. Quite in recent years, however, Björnson has returned to the
novel, and has produced several works of extraordinary merit. Among
these, the latest, _In God's Way_, which was originally published in
1889, has been universally received as the most remarkable. It is a
book which combines the romantic colour and ideal glow of the author's
early pastoral stories, with a deeper insight into life and a graver
examination of the relations of impulse to duty.
Björnson is a Radical in almost every department of thought. Within the
last ten years he has been drawn more and more closely into the vortex
of political life. From his farm at Aulestad, in the mountains, he sent
forth in 1877, a drama, _The King_, the consequences of which were such
as he probably never anticipated. The piece, which was far from being
one of his most artistic creations, was looked upon as a manifestation
of enmity to the throne, and since that time the poet has been driven
further and further into opposition to the existing Sovereign of Sweden
and Norway. But, fortunately for literature, no revolution has as yet
given him that opportunity which so many advanced Norwegians yet hope
may be placed in his way, of helping to administer the government of
his country upon a Republican basis. He is probably able to do better
service to Norway by writing those pure and manly stories of his, which
thousands of young people read with enthusiasm, than if he were
entrusted with the responsibilities of a portfolio. But it would be
idle to speculate what triumphs, whether literary, social, or
political, the future may not hold for one whose physical and
intellectual health is superb, and who has not yet approached his
sixtieth year.