Björnstjerne Björnson

1832-1910

by

William Morton Payne, LL.D.

Translator of Björnson's "Sigurd Slembe" and Jaeger's "Ibsen,"
Author of "Little Leaders," Etc.

To Mary

INTRODUCTORY NOTE

When the date of Björnson's seventieth birthday drew near at the close of 1902, the present writer, who had been from boyhood a devoted admirer of the great Norwegian, wished to make an American contribution to the world-wide tribute of gratitude and affection which the then approaching anniversary was sure to evoke. The outcome of that wish was an essay, summarizing Björnson's life and work, published in "The International Quarterly," March, 1903. The essay then written forms the substance of the present publication, although several additions have been made in the way of translation, anecdote, and the consideration of Björnson's later productions. So small a book as this is, of course, hopelessly inadequate to make more than the most superficial sort of survey of the life work of that masterful personality whose recent death is so heavy a loss to all mankind.

W. M. P.
Chicago, May, 1910.

BJÖRNSTJERNE BJÖRNSON

1832-1910

Eight years ago, taking a bird's-eye view of the mountain peaks of contemporary literature, and writing with particular reference to Björnson's seventieth birthday, it seemed proper to make the following remarks about the most famous European authors then numbered among living men. If one were asked for the name of the greatest man of letters still living in the world, the possible claimants to the distinction would hardly be more than five in number. If it were a question of poetry alone, Swinburne would have to be named first, with Carducci for a fairly close second. But if we take literature in its larger sense, as including all the manifestations of creative activity in language, and if we insist, furthermore, that the man singled out for this preëminence shall stand in some vital relation to the intellectual life of his time, and exert a forceful influence upon the thought of the present day, the choice must rather be made among the three giants of the north of Europe, falling, as it may be, upon the great-hearted Russian emotionalist who has given us such deeply moving portrayals of the life of the modern world; or upon the passionate Norwegian idealist whose finger has so unerringly pointed out the diseased spots in the social organism, earning by his moral surgery the name of pessimist, despite his declared faith in the redemption of mankind through truth and freedom and love; or, perchance, upon that other great Norwegian, equally fervent in his devotion to the same ideals, and far more sympathetic in his manner of inculcating them upon his readers, who has just rounded out his scriptural tale of three score years and ten, and, in commemoration of the anniversary, is now made the recipient of such a tribute of grateful and whole-souled admiration as few men have ever won, and none have better deserved. It would be certainly invidious, and probably futile, to attempt a nice, comparative estimate of the services of these three men to the common cause of humanity; let us be content with the admission that Björnstjerne Björnson is primus inter pares, and make no attempt to exalt him at the expense of his great contemporaries. Writing now eight years later, at the time when Björnson's death has plunged his country and the world in mourning, it is impressive to note that of the five men constituting the group above designated, Tolstoy alone survives to carry on the great literary tradition of the nineteenth century.

It will be well, however, to make certain distinctions between the life work of Björnson and that of the two men whom a common age and common aims bring into inevitable association with him. These distinctions are chiefly two,—one of them is that while Tolstoy and Ibsen grew to be largely cosmopolitan in their outlook, Björnson has much more closely maintained throughout his career the national, or, at any rate, the racial standpoint. The other is that while Tolstoy and Ibsen presently became, the one indifferent to artistic expression, and the other baldly prosaic where he was once deeply poetical, Björnson preserved the poetic impulse of his youth, and continued to give it play even in his envisagement of the most practical modern problems. Let us enlarge a little upon these two themes. Ernest Renan, speaking at the funeral of Tourguénieff, described the deceased novelist as "the incarnation of a whole people." Even more fittingly might the phrase be applied to Björnson, for it would be difficult to find anywhere else in modern literature a figure so completely and profoundly representative of his race. In the frequently quoted words of Dr. Brandes, to speak the name of Björnson in any assembly of his countrymen is like "hoisting the Norwegian flag." It has been maliciously added that mention of his name is also like flaunting a red flag in the sight of a considerable proportion of the assembly, for Björnson has always been a fighter as well as an artist, and it has been his self-imposed mission to arouse his fellow countrymen from their mental sluggishness no less than to give creative embodiment to their types of character and their ideal aspirations. But whatever the opposition aroused by his political and social radicalism, even his opponents have been constrained to feel that he was the mouthpiece of their race as no other Norwegian before him had been, and that he has voiced whatever is deepest and most enduring in the Norwegian temper. Powerful as has been his appeal to the intellect and conscience of the modern world at large, it has always had a special note of admonition or of cheer for his own people. With reference to the second of our two themes, it is sufficient to say that, although the form of verse was almost wholly abandoned by him during the latter half of his life, the breath of poetry never ceased to exhale from his work, and the lyric exuberance of his later prose still recalls to us the singer of the sixties.

Few productions of modern literature have proved as epoch-making as the modest little volume called "Synnöve Solbakken," which appeared in the book shops of Christiania and Copenhagen in 1857. It was a simple tale of peasant life, an idyl of the love of a boy and a girl, but it was absolutely new in its style, and in its intimate revelation of the Norwegian character. It must be remembered that until the year 1814, Norway had for centuries been politically united with Denmark, and that Copenhagen had been the common literary centre of the two countries. To that city Norwegian writers had gravitated as naturally as French writers gravitate to Paris. There had resulted from this condition of things a literature which, although it owed much to men of Norwegian birth, was essentially a Danish literature, and must properly be so styled. That literature could boast, at the beginning of the nineteenth century, an interesting history comparable in its antiquity with the greater literatures of Europe, and a brilliant history for at least a hundred years past. But old literatures are sure to become more or less sophisticated and trammelled by tradition, and to this rule Danish literature was no exception. When the constitution of Eidsvold, in 1814, separated Norway from Denmark, and made it into an independent kingdom (save for the forced Swedish partnership), the country had practically no literary tradition save that which centred about the Danish capital. She might claim to have been the native country of many Danish writers, even of Ludvig Holberg, the