Poems and Songs, Bjørnstjerne Bjørnson [top 10 ebook reader TXT] 📗

emotional religious life is
proverbial. Its value was great in every way; directly and also by
his widely distributed writings it fostered intellectual
enlightenment. The peasant political movement started soon after
1830 among his followers. This explains Björnson's great sympathy
with Hauge and his school.
Modern bishop-synod's letter, the dogmatic literalism of the State
Church, seeking to impose itself on free popular religions faith.
Chambers, reference to proposals to revise the Act of Union with
Sweden, in particular to the plan of a Union-Parliament, all of
which were rejected by Norway.
Folk-high-school's, see Note 65.

Note 46.
OLE GABRIEL UELAND (born October 28, 1799; died January 9, 1870)
was the son of a farmer. He was self-taught, reading all the books
he could find in the region about his home; became a school teacher
in 1817. His marriage in 1827 brought to him the farm Ueland, whose
name he took. He early became foremost in his district, and from
1833 to 1869 was member of the Storting for Stavanger. He organized
and led the Peasant party. In his time one of Norway's most
remarkable men, the most talented peasant and most powerful member
of the Storting, belonging to the generation before Sverdrup, he
prepared the way for the latter, with whom he then coöperated.
Sverdrup once said: "All of us who are engaged in practical politics
are Ueland's pupils."

Note 47.
ANTON MARTIN SCHWEIGAARD, jurist and statesman, was born in
Kragerö, April 11, 1808, and died in Christiania, February 1, 1870.
After five years as lecturer in the University he was, in 1840, made
professor of law, political economy, and statistics. Regarded as the
most representative Norwegian of his age and its aspirations, he was
called by his countrymen "Norway's best son." Though interested in the reform of education and the introduction of European culture,
and hence favorable to Danish literature, standing with Welhaven and
against Wergeland, it was in economics that his influence was
greatest, and indeed greater than that of any other one man in all
Scandinavia. He was the soul of the organizing labor that
accompanied and conditioned Norway's surprisingly rapid material
advance in the decades before and after the middle of the nineteenth
century. A friend of Scandinavism, in politics a liberal
conservative, but never a party man, he was member of the Storting
for Christiania from 1842 to 1869. Schweigaard's personality
contributed most to the high esteem in which he was universally
held; his character was open and direct, actively unselfish, loftily
ideal. His wife died on January 28, 1870. On a walk the next day he
suddenly was seized with intense pains, had to go home and to bed,
and died on February 1. An autopsy showed that his heart had
ruptured. Their joint funeral was held on February 5.

Note 48.
TO AASMUND OLAFSEN VINJE. Vinje, the son of a poor cottager, was
born on a farm in Telemarken, April 6, 1818, and died July 30, 1870.
Poverty and his peculiar personality made life hard for him from
first to last. Bent on testing all things for himself, he came into
conflict with the authorities. He was discharged from a school in
Mandal in 1848 because of his scoffing criticism of a religious
schoolbook. He went then to Heltberg's School (see Note 50) in
Christiania, soon after became a student in the University, and
passed the state examination in law in 1856. But his life was
devoted to literary pursuits, and he was most gifted as a lyric
poet. In 1858 Vinje went over completely to the Landsmaal
(see Note 80), and in this form of dialect found his natural medium
of expression. In October of the same year he began his weekly
paper, Dölen, in which he treated all the current interests.
Although one of the most advanced thinkers and keenest combatants in
his country's spiritual conflicts, he stood very much alone, a great
skeptic and satirist, who practiced irony with the highest art.
Vinje had no home of his own until after his marriage on June 20,
1869. His wife died immediately after the birth of a son, on April
12, 1870. At her burial on April 16 Björnson was present, and
taking Vinje's hand ended an estrangement which had existed for some
years because of Vinje's unjustly harsh criticism of Björnson's
early peasant tales, and other rather personal attacks.
Guests, the angel of life and the angel of death.
You stand sick, with the incurable disease which caused his death
a few months later.
Great and wondrous visions, probably (cf. also the following
stanza) of the truth of the orthodox faith, which Björnson at the
time still firmly held.

Note 49.
GOOD CHEER. This poem stood last in the first edition, with the
title "Last Song." It is a vigorous, partly humorous, beautiful,
true self-characterization of Björnson's position in the life of
Christiania and Norway just prior to 1870, and a statement of his
ideals and models in the three Scandinavian countries, Grundtvig,
Runeberg, and Wergeland. From the beginning of 1865 to the middle
of 1867 he had been director of the Theater, and since March, 1866,
as editor no less than as author, active in polemics, political and
literary. His election early in December, 1869, as president of the
Students' Union, was a demonstration in his favor, shortly after
which this poem was written. Compare also the poem, Oh, When Will
You Stand Forth?, and note thereto.
The twelfth and thirteenth stanzas refer to Grundtvig, for whom see Note 57.
The fourteenth stanza refers to the Finnish Swedish poet, Johan Ludvig
Runeberg (1804-1877), whose lyric, ballad, and epic genius was of national
importance for Sweden. He was a champion of true freedom and naturalness
in literature and life.
Wergeland, see Note 78.

Note 50.
OLD HELTBERG. Henrik Anton Schjött Heltberg was born February 4,
1806, and died March 2, 1873. In early life he was an active member
of Wergeland's Party in the attack on Danish influence, and this
spirit ever controlled him, a "power-genius" of independent
originality, grotesque appearance, and odd manners. From 1838 he was
teacher in various schools, until in his later years he founded in
Christiania a Latin School, continued until after 1870, with a
course of two years formature pupils, whose ages ranged between
sixteen and thirty-five years, the so-called "Student Factory," a
higher cramming-school, chiefly preparing for entrance into the
University. It was, however, attended also by those who for other
reasons wished to learn Latin and Greek. He was a powerful teacher,
a uniquely rousing and educating force.
I went to a school, etc. When ten years old Björnson was sent to
Molde and entered the "Middel-og Real-skole" there, which had only
two classes and, when he left it, twenty-eight pupils. In 1850,
seventeen years old, he went to Christiania and the "Factory."
Prelims, those who had passed only an examination preliminary to
the "Norwegian" (not Latin) official examination.
Vinje, see Note 48.
Jonas Lie, born November 6, 1833; died July 5, 1908; the
noted author of novels and tales.
Grammar. Heltberg's method was a grammatical short-cut system, to
cram Latin and Greek in the shortest time possible. For twenty years
he talked about publishing it, and received a grant from the
Storting for this purpose. But it was always to be improved, and
nothing was published except a fragment after his death.

Note 51.
FOR THE WOUNDED. This song was written in 1871, and sung at bazaars
which were held in all the cities of Norway in order to raise funds
for sending nurses, bandages, and money to the French wounded.

Note 52.
LANDFALL. Written in 1872 for a musical festival in Trondhjem, the
profits of which were given to aid in the restoration of the
Cathedral there.
Olaf Trygvason, see Note 10.

Note 53.
TO HANS CHRISTIAN ANDERSEN. Although Hans Christian Andersen
(1805-1875) traveled frequently and far in the earlier years, he
made after 1863 only one journey out of Denmark. This was to
Norway, to receive the homage of the brother-nation. Björnson had
been quite intimate with him, both personally in Copenhagen and
especially in Rome, and by correspondence. Andersen's genius was
misjudged and condemned by the Danish critic Heiberg (see Note 7),
but his very lack of the then prevailing Danish qualities made
Björnson admire and sympathize with him.
A fairy-tale. Andersen's chief work, Tales told for Children,
appeared in 1835; his New Tales and Stories in 1858-61.

Note 54.
To STANG. Fredrik Stang (born March 4, 1808; died June 8, 1884) was
an active and successful lawyer from 1834 to 1845. In the latter
year he became Secretary of the then established Department of the
Interior, beginning a most meritorious career and opening a new era
in Norway's internal development. By him industry and trade were
made freer, the sea-fisheries and agriculture fostered, roads built,
the postal service was improved, the flrst telegraph line
and the first railroad were instituted. He retired because of
illness in 1854. But after the great minister-crisis of December,
1861, he presided over the Norwegian government until the summer of
1873, when, after the abolition of the viceroyship, he was made
Prime Minister and continued as such until 1880. He was a thorough
conservative, a member of the Right, and so opposed to the political
ideals cherished by Sverdrup (see Note 45) and Björnson.
For the opening lines compare the poem Toast for the Men of
Eidsvold, and notes thereto.

Note 55.
ON A WIFE's DEATH. In memory of Queen Louisa (1828-1871), consort of
King Karl XV of Sweden and Norway. A princess of the Netherlands,
whose mother was the sister of Emperor William I, she was married in
1850o, and died March 30, 1871. She bore a son on December 4, 1852,
who died March 13, 1854. In November, 1870, she was called to her
dying mother in The Hague. Karl XV died in September, 1872, after
several years of precarious health. Queen Louisa was an unassuming,
truly noble woman of deeply religious feeling and large benevolence.

Note 56.
AT THE BIER OF PRECENTOR A. REITAN. Anders Jörgensen Reitan, a
peasant, was born July 26, 1826, and died August 30, 1872. After
attending the Teachers' Seminary, he took up this calling, and in
1853 became precentor (and teacher) in Kvikne, Björnson's
birthplace. He remained in this position the rest of his life,
making himself, by his influence at meetings, through lectures, and
in visits from farm to farm, a pioneer in popular enlightenment, an
important bearer of culture. He was a member of the Storting for the
term 1871-73, but was seriously ill a large part of the session of
1871, and in April, 1872, received leave of absence. He died in
Christiania.

Note 57.
ON THE DEATH OF N. F. S. GRUNDTVIG. Few men have so influenced the
spiritual development of Denmark, and indeed that of all
Scandinavia, as Nicolai Frederik Severin Grundtvig, the noted Danish
theologian, historian, and poet (born September 8, 1783; died
September 2, 1872). He made a name for himself early by historical,
mythological, religious, and poetical writings. He successfully
opposed the rationalistic thought of the earlier nineteenth century
with his simple exposition of Christianity according to the pure
teachings of Jesus. His effort was to present to Scandinavia
Christianity in a popular form, closely connected with the national
thought of the time. There gathered about him a host of able and
enthusiastic followers, through whom his religious and political
influence extended over all the North. His characteristic religious
views were, as a system, called Grundtvigianism. For the Church his