The Susanne

‘Tut! It must be from the stomach. You know last time I...

Thu, 15 Mar 2012 18:57:00 +0100

‘Tut! It must be from the stomach. You know last time I ate lobster. Come and take a glass of sherry, and it will soon be all right.’

The Newly-Married Couple. Trans. Elizabeth & Sivert Hjerleid. 1. ed. London: Simpkin, Marshall & Co., 1870.

De Nygifte

Mon, 12 Mar 2012 21:30:00 +0100

‘IN presenting Björnstjerne Björnson’s play “De Nygifte” to English readers in an English dress, the translators wish, firstly, to assure them that, though apparently so slight a work, they will find it to be full of art, and well worthy their careful study; and, secondly, that they themselves have spared no pains to give a faithful representation of their author’s meaning, preferring to err on the side of ruggedness to being unfaithful to a poet’s thoughts. The original, as other of Björnson’s works, is written in prose. With regard to the estimation in which this poet is held by his countrymen, we might call him the Norwegian Tennyson, while Henrik Ibsen would be their Browning.’

Translator’s preface to Love in Wedlock. Translated by W. & C. Wilkinson. 1. ed. London: Lowestoft, 1869.

Translated by a Norwegian

Mon, 12 Mar 2012 20:52:35 +0100

‘The pieces of poetry in the book I have thought it better for the most party to reprint in Norse, but I have generally put a literal translation at the foot; of a few I have given the translation only. To those, who find some of the verses stupid, it must be remarked, that these verses are exactly the kind, that the Norwegian peasants delight in singing.’

Preface to Arne, or, Peasant Life in Norway. a Norwegian Tale. Translated by Thomas Krag. 1st ed. Bergen: H. J. Geelmuyden’s widow, 1861.

Trust and Trial

Mon, 12 Mar 2012 19:43:04 +0100

Rare first edition of the very first English edition of Bjørnson’s Synnøve Solbakken. Translated by Mary Howitt and entitled Trust and Trial: a Story, this was published in 1858, only a year after the original.

The Scandinavian gloom

Thu, 16 Feb 2012 16:03:00 +0100

“The story of Arne is simple though pathetic, and its incidents serve very well as the occasions for descriptions of the country life with which the author is familiar. These sketches are remarkably pretty – weddings, dancing-parties, nutting-parties, and the like.

…

The general tone of this tale is happy and genial, though there are one or two shades of truly Scandinavian gloom … The manners described are simple and almost patriarchal, though the standard of morality seems hardly to stand at the highest level among the country folk in Norway.”

‘Our Library Table: Norwegian Country Life’, The Month, London: 1866

Arne as instructive literature

Tue, 14 Feb 2012 17:27:00 +0100

‘It is not exactly a book to put into the hands of little children; and children of a larger growth will do well not to accept all its principles, nor catch the inspiration of its spirit. There are touches of heathenishness about it – heathenishness of tone, and sentiment, and language – which is not to be admired.’

London Quarterly Review, London: April 1867

Home Life in (Denmark and) Norway

Thu, 19 Jan 2012 20:56:01 +0100

‘Probably most people, who have ever given Norway a thought, have wondered that the country whose swarming Vikinger made the Northern Sea a Scandinavian lake in the tenth century, should have subsided so irrevocably into a province, with no higher interests than the cod-fishery and the timber-trade.’

The National Review, London: January 1863

A lewed accusation

Tue, 31 May 2011 13:26:49 +0200

‘The intellectual feebleness of readers in general prevents their forming a discriminating estimate of the worth of such works; and most of those who are capable of discrimination have had their standard of expectation so loewred by the production of mediocrity, that they languidly acquiesce in the implied assumption that novels are removed from the canons of common-sense criticism.’

George Henry Lewes: ‘Criticism in relation to novels’, The Fortnightly Review, London: 1863

Gosse's visit to the Foe of Ibsen

Wed, 04 May 2011 19:10:00 +0200

‘I had now the honour of being admitted every day to the company of Daae and his friends, and it was clearly explained to me that they formed a compact and still influential body of resistance to the subversive policy of Björnson, Sverdrup and the terrible peasant Jaabsek, whom they regarded with peculiar apprehension.

Hans Christian Andersen had given me a note of introduction to Björnson, and in spite of the objections of my new friends, I found that I could not resist the temptation to use it. Accordingly I went to the house in Munkedamsveien which Bjornson shared with the philosopher G. V. Lyng (1827-1884) whom I had met in Denmark. They occupied a small house in a long suburban lane on the edge of the city.

I had been told that the poet was very formidable, and as I waited in the hall, I heard him growling “Saa! saa! saa!” over the card and note I had sent in. I quaked, but I plunged ; I was ushered into a pretty room with trellised windows, where a large and even burly man (Bjornson was then under forty), who was sitting astride the end of a narrow sofa, rose vehemently to receive me.

His long limbs, his athletic frame, and especially his remarkably forcible face, surrounded by a mane of wavy brown hair, and illuminated by full blue eyes behind flashing spectacles, gave an instant impression of physical vigour. He was truculently cordial, and lifted his ringing tones in civil conversation.

Resuming his singular attitude astride the sofa, he entered affably into a loud torrent of talk, foiling back, shaking his great head, suddenly bringing himself up into a sitting posture to shout out, with a palm pressed upon either knee, some question or statement. His full and finely modulated voice, with his clear enunciation, greatly aided his not a little terrified visitor in appreciating his remarks, but he spoke at great speed, and it strained the attention of a foreigner to follow his somewhat florid volubility.

He expressed himself highly pleased with the reception his romances had received in England, but seemed surprised that his dramas were not known. He recommended to me a new viking-play, called Sigurd Jorsalfar, which he had just sent to press, and which had been refused “though with the loveliest music by Grieg ever heard out of a dream” by the Royal Theatre in Copenhagen, a repulse which Bjbrnson flatly attributed to the malignity of the manager, Molbech.

He promised to send me to London a copy of Sigurd Jorsalfar as soon as it was published, and he was so amiable as to keep his word.’

Edmund Gosse, ‘A Visit to the Friends of Ibsen’, The Modern Language Review, London: 1918

From the play "The Glove"

Tue, 03 May 2011 15:27:00 +0200

Svova has discovered that Alf, to whom she is engaged, has previously had relations with another woman; she has consequently determined to break off the engagement, and the following is a portion of a conversation she holds with her Uncle Nordan.

NORDAN: Come here and sit down. Or dare you not enter on an investigation?
SVOVA: Yes, I dare! (She comes and sits down.)
NORDAN: You suppose this is a very doubtful question which is being treated by serious men and women all over the world?
SVOVA: This is matter personal to me, and to me it is not doubtful.
NORDAN: You misunderstand me, child. You are to solve your own problem, you and no other that is a matter of course. But suppose the problem you have to solve isn’t quite what you think it; suppose at this very moment it is employing thousands and thousands are not you bound to take account of the general conditions involved, and of all that is being said and thought on the matter ? Is it not unconscientious to judge in the particular case without doing that?
SVOVA: I understand. But I think I have done what you require of me. Ask mother!
NORDAN: O yes, you and your mother have talked and read a good deal about marriage and the position of women how, now that class-privileges have been abolished, it is time that sex-privileges should be abolished too. But this particular question-
SVOVA: What do you think I have overlooked?
NORDAN: Well, have you the right to be as severe against the man as against the woman? Eh?
SVOVA : Yes, of course.
NORDAN: Is it so much a matter of course? Go out and inquire! Out of a hundred you meet ninety will answer no; women, as well as men.
SVOVA: Hm! Now we’re coming to another question.
NORDAN: Perhaps, but it requires knowledge to answer the question.
SVOVA: Do you mean what you say?
NORDAN: That doesn’t matter to you! Besides, I always mean what I say. A woman can marry at sixteen. A man must wait till he is twenty-five or thirty. There’s the distinction !
SVOVA: There is a distinction! For there are many many times more unmarried women than men. And that shows self-restraint. Men find it more convenient to make a law of their want of self-restraint.
NORDAN: Such an answer betrays ignorance. Man is a polygamic beast, like many other beasts, and the theory is enormously supported by the fact that there are more women than men in the world. You never heard that before perhaps!
SVOVA: Indeed I have, Mr. doctor of science !
NORDAN: Don’t laugh at science! What are we to trust if not that?
SVOVA: I only wish men had as much trouble over their children as women! If only they had! I fancy it would change their principles! If only they had!
NORDAN: They have no time for that; they have to “subdue the earth”.
SVOVA: Yes! they assigned the parts themselves!

Anonymous, ‘The Later Plays of Björnson’, Macmillan’s Magazine, London: 1889

Björnson and his Christianity

Wed, 13 Apr 2011 18:58:00 +0200

“When a crisis in the world of thought and religion was brought about by the new theories of natural science in the seventies, Björnson was carried away by the new movement, which shook the ground on which he based his faith. His psalms of that period show how his mind was torn asunder, what a struggle it cost him to tear himself from the soil in which his poetry had been so strongly rooted, and which had given birth to the deepest life of his heart.

Chieftain as he was, he suffered not only his own pain and fought his own fight, he felt the responsibility of carrying a whole people with him. But his desire for truth and knowledge drove him out to new conquests. He once more went out into the world to find the greatest thing in it – to find what is truth.

The Christians, terrified, fled to the churches and closed them against him. Truth was a revelation; it was to be found, complete and unchangeable, in the form which Lutheran theology had fixed it. Old friends deserted him, and Björnson had to go his way alone.”

Ella Anker, ‘Björnson and his Christianity’, The Contemporary Review, London:1910

Tea, darling?

Wed, 13 Apr 2011 15:20:00 +0200

“Most of the play is pretty; some of it is beautiful; all of it has a vague distinction. But its fine-drawn, capricious scenes are matter for amiable gossip over tea-tables rather than serious discussion… We can say this without abating our appreciation of the high value of the totality of Björnson’s artistic achievement, now extending over some fifty years.
The translation is bad.”

Anonymous, ‘Last of the Vikings’ Laboremus: book review, The Academy, London:1901

A characteristic story of Björnson

Wed, 13 Apr 2011 14:22:00 +0200

“The recent Congress of the Scandinavian Press, at Christiania, was a very important affair, including receptions by King Oscar and the Municipality of Christiania, and Björnson and Ibsen had both been invited to take part in it. Neither, however, put in an appearance. Ibsen wrote a polite letter explaining that his old age prevented him from accepting the invitation. Björnson was not so courteous. He sent the following telegram to the President of the Congress:

‘I do not make long voyages to dine with people who spread calumnities against me, and attack my honour daily.’”

Anonymous, ‘The Literary Week’, The Academy, London:1899

The irreconcilables

Wed, 13 Apr 2011 13:13:43 +0200

”Scandinavian writers, therefore, have taken two directions. One set are the fighters, the irreconcilables, and irony and satire are the chief means they emply in writing their winged words. Ibsen is the great representative of this class, and others are Björnson, Strindberg, Skram, Christian Elster, Kjelland, the Lefflers, and Garborg…”

Anonymous, ‘The Literary Week’, The Academy, London:1899

Futurama

Wed, 13 Apr 2011 11:55:16 +0200

“What we want in the future is a literature which will make men better.”

Bjørnstjerne Bjørnson quoted in William Henry Schofield, ‘Personal impressions of Björnson and Ibsen’, Atlantic Monthly, Boston:1898

Modern times

Wed, 13 Apr 2011 11:04:00 +0200

“Magnhild is a victim of that morbid egotism to which the women of Norwegian novels are usually a prey. She has the customary inability to accept the hard facts of lige and make the best of them.

She lives among the usual throng of monsters, mental or physical, who are sketched with Björnson’s painful and perhaps inartistic minuteness. The actions of the various characters in the story are generally preposterous if not maniacal, and altogether the effect which it produces is one of unrelieved gloom and depression.

The sombre dead-level of squalor and horror with which it deals would be apt to get on one’s nerves, and the feckless, shiftless, slatternly Magnhild is, we hope, a character more likely to excite impatience than sympathy in the breast of the healthy British maiden. Probably it would be better is she did not read about her at all.”

Book review: ‘Magnhild’ and ‘Dust’, The Academy, London:1897

Oh, Gosse

Tue, 12 Apr 2011 14:39:00 +0200

“Space is wanting to do justice here to the little novel of Kaptejn Mansana, a story of passion and adventure from the last phase of Italian history. It has all the delicacy and beauty of those early stories by which Björnson attracted to himself European attention, but it surpasses these, it seems to me, in truth and vigour of delineation, in power over the more subtle and reflex emotions of the mind, and in a more perfect command over the fervent parts of style.”

Edmund Gosse, ‘Two new works by Björnson’, The Academy, London:1879

No longer the soft cheese...

Tue, 12 Apr 2011 12:19:00 +0200

“…its cheerful optimism becomes the winning personality of the hero and his fair lady-love. The book gains genius and charm, too, from its skilful presentation of peasant reserve and innate shyness. The correspondence of Eyvind[sic] during his sojourn at the agricultural college is at once extremely amusing and strangely pathetic. His letters awaken within us a profound astonishment that people so incapable of expressing themselves can ever achieve their ambitions. And yet the boy has an eloquence of his own, that to Marit at least proved irresistible:

‘To the Highly Honoured Marit-Knut’s Daughter, –I have just received your letter, but you seem to want me to be just as wise as I was before. I dare not write anything of what I want to write about, for I do not know you. But perhaps you don’t know me either. You must not believe that I am any longer the soft cheese out of which you pressed water when I sat and watched you dance. I have lain upon many a shelf to dry since that time. Nor yet am I like those long-haired dogs that for the slightest thing let their ears droop, and slip away from people, as I used to do. I take my chance now. Your letter was playful enough, but it was playful just where it ought not to have been, for you understand me well, and you could guess that I did not ask for fun, but because of late I can think of nothing but what I asked about. I waited in deep anxiety, and then came nothing but trifling and laughter. Good-bye, Marit Nordistauer, I shall not look too much at you, as I did at that dance. I hope you may both eat and sleep well, and finish your new web of cloth, and especially that you may shovel away the snow that lies before the church door.’”

Book review: ‘A Happy Boy’, The Academy, London: 1896

Wuthering Fjords?

Mon, 11 Apr 2011 14:34:02 +0200

“The first part has an unintermittent imaginative intensity, a Rembrandt-like breadth of literary chiaroscuro, and a vigorous realism of that relentless kid which of late has exercised such a fascinations over both writers and readers; and it leaves the impression of immense activity.

In the remainder of the book this creative energy is put into harness and made to drag a heavy chariot, or rather a prosaic cart, filled with theories – theories of education, of heredity, and sexual morals, the result being that its paces are subdued to a spiritless amble which is unspeakably depressing.

In the Kurts of Tomas’s ancestry there is a rich warmth of baleful vitality; we feel the palpitation of their wild hearts; and their story may be fitly described as a Norse Wuthering Heights.

Had the writer continued to work the imaginative vein struck in the opening chapter, The Heritage of the Kurts would have been a romance of sombre power; as it stands, it is ineffective, with that kind of ineffectiveness which must be found wherever creation is dominated by polemics.”

James Ashcroft Noble, ‘The Heritage of the Kurts: book review’, The Academy, London:1892

Neither a Milton, nor a Dante, nor a Goethe be

Tue, 29 Mar 2011 17:41:09 +0200

“With Björnson, however, begins the true Gothic school, about which Tegner (the Matthew Arnold of the North) blundered so beautifully. He is content with the simplest elements, yet takes care to assimilate them exquisitely. He is not a Milton, capable of producing a Christian epic; nor a Dante, capable of contructing and all-embracing allegory of personal suffering; nor a Goethe, capable of founding a science of culture. He is merely an idyllic thinker, exhibiting some creative fortitude, and wealthy in delicate suggestion.”

Anonymous, ‘BJORNSON’, Spectator, London:1866