Norwegian Literature

I

Introduction

Norwegian Literature, literature of the Norwegian people, dating from about ad 800 to the present. This literature may be grouped into three periods. In the first period, from about 800 to about 1400, Norway largely shared its literature with Iceland. In the second, from about 1400 to 1814, it generally shared its literature with Denmark. In the third period, from 1814 to the present, Norway developed an independent literature.

II

Norwegian-Icelandic Period

Old Norse (early Norwegian and Icelandic) literature is essentially a product of the Viking age. The deeds, beliefs, history, and lore of the Norwegian Vikings who settled Iceland at the end of the 9th century found expression in poems, tales, and legends. These were transmitted orally but not written down until the 13th century, chiefly in Icelandic manuscripts. See Icelandic Literature.

The oldest-known written Old Norse work is the group of poems called the Poetic Edda. These famous poems tell the tales of Norse and Germanic gods and human heroes. Another type of poetry more complex and metaphorical, known as the skaldic poetry, was composed to be performed by skalds (bards or court poets). The earliest known skald was a Norwegian, Bragi Boddason, who lived in the first half of the 9th century. When skaldic poetry ceased in Norway, it continued in Iceland. A somewhat later development of Old Norse literature is the saga, a prose epic or narrative. The sagas were told by the Icelanders but were not concerned solely with Icelandic events. For example, the renowned Heimskringla by Snorri Sturluson is a 13th-century history of Norwegian kings. In general, the sagas are built on and carry forward Norwegian traditions. Scandinavian Mythology.

In the 13th century the religious and courtly literature of continental Europe reached Norway through translations and adaptations of homilies, legends of saints, and tales of such heroes as Arthur, Charlemagne, and Theodoric. The courtly circles of the Middle Ages generally turned their backs on the native forms of the Viking age and sought the new learning of Catholic Europe. King Håkon IV had French lais (epic ballads) and chansons de geste (“songs of great deeds”) translated into Old Norse. Of prime importance as a Norwegian literary creation was “The King’s Mirror,” a textbook in verse on etiquette, geography, trade, and other worldly wisdom for the education of princes. Ballads on native themes also entered the literary tradition in the 13th century. One of the most impressive was the Dream Ballad, a vision of the hereafter embodying ideas similar to those used by Italian poet Dante Alighieri in The Divine Comedy. Ballads had flourished in Norway centuries before they were put in writing. They included stories of ogres and maidens in distress, courtly love, and tragic heroism.

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III

Norwegian-Danish Period

At the end of the 13th century, Norway entered into a union with Denmark that lasted more than 400 years. Norway’s status was gradually reduced to that of a province ruled from Copenhagen in Denmark. The flowering of Old Norse literature had come to an end, and for two centuries little literary writing was done in Norway.

After the Reformation of the 16th century literary activity slowly resumed, with a simultaneous growth of Danish influence. Books printed in Copenhagen made their way to Norway, which had no printing press until 1643. Danish became the official language in Norway and was adopted by Norwegian writers. The influence of humanism was discernible in the writings of Absalon Pederssøn Beyer and Peder Claussøn Friis in the 16th century. Beyer dug among the ancient documents and asserted the right of Norway to be considered still a kingdom of its own. Friis’s translation of Snorri’s Heimskringla also stirred patriotic feelings. In the 17th century, clergyman Petter Dass wrote Nordlands trompet (“The Trumpet of Nordland”), a description written in verse of northern Norway and the life of its rugged fishing population.

During the 18th century a gradual increase in prosperity led to a strengthening of Norway’s position within the Dano-Norwegian union, and Norway contributed significantly to the common literature of the twin kingdoms. The leading writer was Ludvig Holberg, who was born in Norway and retained many of his Norwegian characteristics, although he did his life work in Denmark. Having traveled widely in Europe, he brought to the Nordic countries impulses from French rationalism and English deism. There was practically no form of literature then current in Europe that Holberg did not attempt, and to all of it he brought urbanity, wit, and common sense. He wrote important historical works, satirical poems, and moralistic essays, but he became most famous for his comedies, classical plays that are still performed in both Norway and Denmark.

The later 18th century brought forth an entire school of Norwegian authors, who received their training at Copenhagen and printed their books in Denmark. Their center of activity was the Norwegian Society organized by students in Copenhagen before the opening of a distinct Norwegian university in Oslo (then called Christiania) in 1813. Among the poets who flourished, the most enduring is also the most amusing, Johan Herman Wessel. Wessel parodied the exalted tragic style in his witty comedy Kiaerlighed uden strømper (1772, Love Without Stockings). Other writers of the period were the poets Christian Braunman Tullin and Johan Nordahl Brun and the critical essayist Claus Fasting.

IV

Independence: The 19th Century

As a result of the Napoleonic Wars, which ended with the defeat of Napoleon in 1814, Norway became separated from Denmark and united with Sweden, with qualified independence. A split quickly occurred between the partisans of literary tradition and the advocates of nationalistic revolt. Many educated people wished to carry on the Dano-Norwegian tradition. They were led by the poet Johan Sebastian Welhaven, whose delicate sense of beauty was offended by the rawness of cultural life in his homeland and who flayed his compatriots in an elegant sonnet sequence, Norges dæmring (1834, Dawn of Norway) for their bumptious pretenses. His leading adversary was poet and dramatist Henrik Arnold Wergeland, who appealed directly to the common people in the name of Norway’s ancient glory and hopeful future. Although he was often obscure and unpoetic, his work glitters with the sparkle of a magnificent fantasy. Each of these writers represented certain aspects of romanticism, and their activities led to a discovery of the treasures of Norwegian folk heritage.

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