| NORWAY (Language and Literature) | 512 |
Finmark and Spitzbergen, large additions were made to geological science. Theodor Kjerulf (1825-'73) succeeded Keilhau in the professorship of geology at the national university. The explorations of Jens Esmark (1763-1839) among the Norwegian mountains resulted in some well founded theories on glaciers; and J. C. Horbye has treated (1857) the erosion of mountains. The leading botanists have been Christen Smith (1785-1816), whose travels in the Congo region of Africa were first published by the British government; Sommerfeldt, who, besides a treatise on the cryptogamous plants of Norway, issued in 1826 a large supplement to Wahlenberg's “Laplandic Flora;” Blytt, the first part of whose Norsk Flora appeared in 1847; and Schübeler (born in 1815), author of Die Pflanzenwelt Norwegens. In zoölogy, the splendid work of Michael Sars (1805-'69), a Norwegian Fauna Litoralis, is widely known; and the son of the author, G. O. Sars, sustains in this branch his father's high reputation. The mathematical writings of N. H. Abel (1802-'29) have been translated into French; other authors of distinction in the same branch are B. Holmboe, O. J. Broch, and M. S. Lie. In 1848 Danielson and Boeck published, in Danish at Christiania and in French at Paris, the important results of their investigations into Spedalskhed or elephantiasis, which is prevalent in Norway and Iceland; and their work has been followed by another essay by Bidenkap. Boeck was the first to advocate inoculation in syphilitic diseases. F. Holst (born in 1791) greatly contributed by his treatises on the subject to the improvement of the Norwegian hospitals and prisons. Skjelderup published several volumes of interest to the medical student. The schism produced by the labors and writings of Hauge (1771-1824), and the freedom of religious worship secured by the constitution, have produced theological writers of ability. Among them are W. A. Wexels, S. J. Stenersen (1789-1835), C. P. Caspari (born at Dessau in 1814, but for many years attached to the university of Christiania), and somewhat later Tönder, Nissen, G. Johnson, and F. W. Bugge. In metaphysics the only authors of note are M. J. Monrad, C. Heiberg, and G. V. Lyng. The history, philology, and antiquities of Norway have been zealously studied. Jacob Aall (1773-1844) translated the voluminous chronicles of Snorri Sturlason, besides leaving an interesting record of his own times in his Erindringer or memoirs; A. Faye published a history of Norway in 1831; Rudolph Keyser followed up his account of the religion of the ancient Northmen (translated by Pennock, New York, 1854) with a more extensive work on the history of the Norwegian church during the Catholic period; and C. C. A. Lange and C. R. Unger have edited a Diplomatarium Norvegicum. But the most important national historical work is Det norske Folks Historie, by Peder Andreas Munch (1810-'63), in nine volumes. Later historical writers are O. Rygh, J. E. Sars, S. Petersen, and Gustav Storm, whose essay on Snorri Sturlason (1873) is a work of abil- ity. In 1847, by the publication of Munch's edition of the elder Edda, and a grammar and chrestomathy of the old language, was founded the Norwegian school of philology. The works of P. A. Munch, C. R. Unger (born in 1817), and R. Keyser (1803-'65), the leaders in this philological movement, comprise, among many others, a treatise on the oldest form of runic writing, a Gothic and an Old Swedish grammar, and editions of Fagr-skinna (1847), Alexandurs Saga (1848), Saga Olafs hins Helga (1849), Strengleikur (1850), Aslak Bolts Jordbog (1852), Stjørn (1853), Saga Olafs Tryggvasonar (1853), Saga Didriks af Bern (1853), Karlamagnus Saga (1859), Morkinskinna (1866), the “Saga of Thomas à Becket” (1868), the Mariu Saga (1869), and the Codex Frisianus (1870). With the assistance of the government there has been completed (1860-'65) an accurate reprint of the Flateyjarbok (Codex Flateyensis), containing sagas of the Norwegian kings, and much historical and legendary lore concerning Iceland and the whole European north. The youngest member of this school, Sophus Bugge (born in 1833), has edited several sagas and the best critical edition of the elder Edda. Ivar Andreas Aasen (born in 1813) published Det norske Folkesprogs Grammatik (1848) and an Ordbog (1850). C. A. Holmboe (born in 1796) has made an important contribution to comparative philology by his “Comparative Lexicon of several of the Indo-European Tongues” (Vienna, 1852), and by other works. The dialects of the Laplanders have been laboriously studied by the missionary Stockfleth (born in 1787), and by I. A. Friis, whose Lappisk Sproglære was issued in 1852, and has been followed by other works. In classical philology the chief laborer is L. C. M. Aubert. The poems and dramas of H. A. Bjerregaard (died in 1842) are national in spirit, but lack originality and brilliancy. Henrik Arnold Wergeland (1808-'45) was for a long time the favorite poet of the Norwegians, and a complete collection of his works in nine volumes has been published. J. S. Welhaven (1807-'73), the eminent rival of Wergeland, wrote numerous lyrics, national dramas, and æsthetical essays, collected in eight volumes (1868). Andreas Munch (born in 1810), a cousin of the historian, by his poetical and dramatic productions has rendered himself one of the most popular of the living poets. His Digte (1848), Nye Digte (1850), Reisebilleder (1851), Sorg og Trøst (1852), Digte og Fortællinger (1855), and Reiseminder (1865) are his chief works. M. C. Hansen (1794-1842) produced a multitude of poems and romances, besides several works on other subjects. P. C. Asbjörnsen and J. Moe, in their Folkeventyr and Huldreeventyr (4th ed., 1871), have collected the popular tales which have been orally preserved by the Norwegian peasants for many generations; and M. B. Land-
