however, better known by his labours in comparative mythology, in
conjunction with P. C. Asbjörnsen (see Asbjörnsen and Moe).
The names of the Norwegians Ibsen (q.v.) and Björnson (q.v.), in the two fields of the drama and the novel, stand out prominently in the European literature of the later 19th century; and two writers of novels who owe much to their example are Jonas Lie (q.v.), and Alexander Kielland (1849–1906). Nicolai Ramm Östgaard (1812–1872) to some extent Modern novelists and dramatists. preceded Björnson in his graceful romance En Fjeldbygd (A Mountain Parish), in 1852. Frithjof Foss (1830–1899), who wrote under the pseudonym of Israél Dehn, attracted notice by seven separate stories published between 1862 and 1864. Jacobine Camilla Collett (1813—1895), sister of the poet Wergeland, wrote Amtmandens Döttre (The Governor’s Daughters) (1855), an excellent novel, and the first in Norwegian literature which attempted the truthful description of ordinary life. She was a pioneer in the movement for the emancipation of women in Norway. Anne Magdalene Thoresen (1819–1903), a Dane by birth, wrote a series of novels of peasant life in the manner of Björnson, of whom she was no unworthy pupil. One of her best novels is Signes Historie (1864). She also wrote some lyrical poetry and successful dramas. The principal historian of Norway is Peter Andreas Munch (1810–1863), whose multifarious History, etc. writings include a grammar of Old Norse (1847); a collection of Norwegian laws until the year 1387 (1846–1849); a study of Runic inscriptions (1848); a history and description of Norway during the middle ages (1849); and a history of the Norwegian people in 8 vols. (1852–1863); Jakob Aall (1773–1844) was associated with Munch in this work. Christian Berg (1775–1852) was another worker in the same field. Jakob Rudolf Keyser (1803–1864) printed and annotated the most important documents dealing with the medieval history of Norway. Carl Richard Unger (b. 1817) took part in the same work and edited Morkinskinna in 1867. His edition of the elder Edda (1867) forms a landmark in the study of Scandinavian antiquities. Oluf Rygh (1833–1899) contributed to the archaeological part of history. The modern language of Norway found an admirable grammarian in Jakob Olaus Lökke (1829–1881). A careful historian and ethnographer was Ludvig Kristensen Daa (1809–1877). Ludvig Daae (b. 1834) has written the history of Christiania, and has traced the chronicles of Norway during the Danish possession. Bernt Moe (1814–1850) was a careful biographer of the heroes of Eidsvold. Eilert Lund Sundt (1817–1875) published some very curious and valuable works on the condition of the poorer classes in Norway. Professor J. A. Friis (b. 1821) published the folk-lore of the Lapps in a series of valuable volumes. The German orientalist, Christian Lassen (1800–1876) was a Norwegian by birth. Lorentz Dietrichson (b. 1834) wrote voluminously both on Swedish and Norwegian, chiefly on Norwegian art and literature. In jurisprudence the principal Norwegian authorities are Anton Martin Schweigaard (1808–1870) and Frederik Stang (1808–1884). Peter Carl Lasson (1798–1873) and Ulrik Anton Motzfelt (1807–1865) were the lights of an earlier generation. In medical science, the great writer of the beginning of the 19th century was Michael Skjelderup (1769–1852), who was succeeded by Frederik Holst (1791–1871). Daniel Cornelius Danielsen (b. 1815) was a prominent dermatologist; but probably the most eminent of modern physiologists in Norway is Carl Wilhelm Boeck (1808–1875). The elder brother of the last-mentioned, Christian Peter Bianco Boeck (1798–1877), also demands recognition as a medical writer. Christopher Hansteen (1784–1873) was professor of mathematics at the university for nearly sixty years. Michael Sars (1805–1869) obtained a European reputation through his investigations in invertebrate zoology. He was assisted by his son Georg Ossian Sars (b. 1837). Baltazar Matthias Keilhau (1797–1858) and Theodor Kjerulf (1825–1888) have been the leading Norwegian geologists. Mathias Numsen Blytt (1789–1862) represents botany. His Norges Flora, part of which was published in 1861, was left incomplete at his death. Niels Henrik Abel (1802–1829) (q.v.) was a mathematician of extraordinary promise; Ole Jakob Broch (1818–1889) must be mentioned in the same connexion. Among theological writers may be mentioned Hans Nielsen Hauge (1771–1824), author of the sect which bears his name; Svend Borchman Hersleb (1784–1836); Stener Johannes Stenersen (1789–1835); Wilhelm Andreas Wexels (1797–1866); a writer of extraordinary popularity; and Carl Paul Caspari (1814–1892), a German of Jewish birth, who adopted Christianity and became professor of theology in the university of Christiania.
The political crisis of 1884–1885, which produced so remarkable
an effect upon the material and social life of Norway, was not
without its influence upon literature. There had
followed to the great generation of the ’sixties, led by
Ibsen and Björnson, a race of entirely prosaic writers,
of no great talent, much exercised with “problems.” The
The new movement.
movement which began in 1885 brought back the fine masters
of a previous imaginative age, silenced the problem-setters, and
encouraged a whole generation of new men, realists of a healthier
sort. In 1885 the field was still held by the three main names of
modern Norse literature—Ibsen, Björnson and Lie. Henrik
Ibsen proceeded deliberately with his labours, and his name at the
same time grew in reputation and influence. The advance of
Björnstjerne Björnson was not so regular, because it was disturbed
by political issues. Moreover, his early peasant tales
once more, after having suffered great neglect, grew to be a force,
and Björnson’s example has done much to revive an interest
in the art of verse in Norway. Jonas Lie, the most popular
novelist of Norway, continued to publish his pure, fresh and
eminently characteristic stories. His style, colloquial almost to
a fault, has neither the charm of Björnson nor the art of some
of the latest generation. Ibsen, Björnson and Lie continued,
however, to be the three representative authors of their country.
Kristian Elster (1841–1881) showed great talent in his pessimistic
novels Tora Trondal (1879) and Dangerous People (1881).
Kristian Glöersen (b. 1838) had many affinities with Elster.
Arne Garborg (1851) was brought up under sternly pietistic
influences in a remote country parish, the child of peasant
parents, in the south-west corner of Norway, and the gloom
of these early surroundings has tinged all his writings. The
early novels of Garborg were written in the peasant dialect,
and for that reason, perhaps, attracted little attention. It was
not until 1890 that he addressed the public in ordinary language,
in his extraordinary novel, Tired Men, which produced a deep
sensation. Subsequently Gargborg returned, with violence, to
the cultivation of the peasant language, and took a foremost
part in the maalstræv. A novelist of considerable crude force
was Amalie Skram (1847–1905), wife of the Danish novelist,
Erik Skram. Her novels are destitute of literary beauty, but
excellent in their local colour, dealing with life in Bergen and the
west coast. But the most extravagant product of the prosaic
period was Hans Jæger (b. 1854), a sailor by profession, who
left the sea, obtained some instruction and embarked on literature.
Jæger accepted the naturalistic formulas wholesale, and outdid
Zola himself in the harshness of his pictures of life. Several of
Jæger’s books, and in particular his novel Morbid Love (1893),
were immediately suppressed, and can with great difficulty be
referred to. Knud Hamsun (b. 1860) has been noted for his
egotism, and for the bitterness of his attacks upon his fellow-writers
and the great names of literature. Hamsun is seen at
his best in the powerful romance called Hunger (1888). A writer
of a much more pleasing, and in its quiet way of a much more
original order, is Hans Aanrud (b. 1863). His humour, applied
to the observation of the Ostland peasants—Aanrud himself
comes from the Gulbrandsdal—is exquisite; he is by far the
most amusing of recent Norwegian writers, a race whose fault it
is to take life too seriously. His story, How Our Lord made Hay
at Asmund Bergemellum’s (1887), is a little masterpiece. Peter
Egge (b. 1869), a young novelist and playwright from Trondhjem,
came to the front with careful studies of types of Norwegian
temperament. In his Jacob and Christopher (1900) Egge also
proved himself a successful writer of comedy. Gunnar Heiberg
(b. 1857), although older than most of the young generation,
has but lately come into prominence. His poetical drama, The
Balcony, made a sensation in 1894, but ten years earlier his
comedy of Aunt Ulrica should have awakened anticipation.
His strongest work is Love’s Tragedy (1904). Two young writers
of great promise were removed in the very heyday of success,
Gabriel Finne (1866–1899) and Sigbjörn Obstfelder (1866–1900).
The last mentioned, in The Red Drops and The Cross, published
in 1897, gave promise of something new in Norwegian literature.
Obstfelder, who died in a hospital in Copenhagen in August 1900,
left an important book in MS., A Priest’s Diary (1901).
Verse was banished from Norwegian literature, during the years that immediately preceded 1885. The credit of restoring it belongs to Sigurd Bödtker, who wrote an extremely naturalistic piece called Love, in the manner of Heine. The earliest real poet of the new generation is, however, Niels Collett Vogt (b. 1864), who published a little volume of Poems in 1887. Arne Dybfest (1868–1892), a young anarchist who committed suicide, was a decadent egotist of the most pronounced type, but a poet of unquestionable talent, and the writer of a remarkably
