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.