Essays on Scandinavian Literature, Hjalmar Hjorth Boyesen [best ebook reader ubuntu txt] 📗

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