An Essay Toward a History of Shakespeare in Norway | Page 6

the
risk of being called an eccentric. Modern languages then offered no
avenue to preferment, and why, forsooth, did men attend lectures and
take examinations except to gain the means of earning a livelihood? He
justifies his interest, however, by the seriousness and industry with
which Shakespeare is studied in Germany and England. With the founts
of this study he is apparently familiar, and with the influence of
Shakespeare on Lessing, Goethe, and the lesser romanticists. It is
interesting to note, too, that two scholars, well known in widely
different fields, Monrad, the philosopher--for some years a sort of Dr.
Johnson in the literary circles of Christiania--and Unger, the scholarly
editor of many Old Norse texts, assisted him in his work.
The character of Hauge's work is best seen in his notes. They consist of
a careful defense of every liberty he takes with the text, explanations of
grammatical constructions, and interpretations of debated matters. For
example, he defends the witches on the ground that they symbolize the
power of evil in the human soul.
Man kan sige at Shakespeare i dem og deres Slæng har givet de
nytestamentlige Dæmoner Kjød og Blod.
(We may say that Shakespeare in them and their train has endowed the
demons of the New Testament with flesh and blood). Again, he would

change the word incarnadine to incarnate on the ground that Twelfth
Night V offers a similar instance of the corrupt use of incardinate for
incarnate. The word occurs, moreover, in English only in this
passage.[13] Again, in his note to Act IV, he points out that the
dialogue in which Malcolm tests the sincerity of Macduff is taken
almost verbatim from Holinshed. "In performing the play," he suggests,
"it should, perhaps, be omitted as it very well may be without injury to
the action since the complication which arises through Malcolm's
suspicion of Macduff is fully and satisfactorily resolved by the
appearance of Rosse." And his note to a passage in Act V is interesting
as showing that, wide and thorough as was Hauge's acquaintance with
Shakespearean criticism, he had, besides, a first-hand knowledge of the
minor Elizabethan dramatists. I give the note in full. "_The way to
dusty death--_
Til dette besynderlige Udtryk, kan foruden hvad Knight og Dyce have
at citere, endnu citeres af Fords Perkin Warbeck, II, 2, "I take my leave
to travel to my dust."
[13. This is, of course, incorrect. Cf. Macbeth, Variorum Edition. Ed.
Furness. Phila. 1903, p. 40. Note.]
Hauge was a careful and conscientious scholar. He knew his field and
worked with the painstaking fidelity of the man who realizes the
difficulty of his task. The translation he gave is of a piece with the
man--faithful, laborious, uninspired. But it is, at least, superior to
Rosenfeldt and Sander, and Hauge justified his work by giving to his
countrymen the best version of Macbeth up to that time.
Monrad himself reviewed Hauge's Macbeth in a careful and
well-informed article, in Nordisk Tidsskrift for Videnskab og Literatur,
which I shall review later.
D
One of the most significant elements in the intellectual life of modern
Norway is the so-called Landsmaal movement. It is probably
unnecessary to say that this movement is an effort on the part of many

Norwegians to substitute for the dominant Dano-Norwegian a new
literary language based on the "best" dialects. This language,
commonly called the Landsmaal, is, at all events in its origin, the
creation of one man, Ivar Aasen. Aasen published the first edition of
his grammar in 1848, and the first edition of his dictionary in 1850. But
obviously it was not enough to provide a grammar and a word-book.
The literary powers of the new language must be developed and
disciplined and, accordingly, Aasen published in 1853 _Prøver af
Landsmaalet i Norge_. The little volume contains, besides other
material, seven translations from foreign classics; among these is
Romeo's soliloquy in the balcony scene.[14] (Act II, Sc. 1) This modest
essay of Aasen's, then, antedates Hauge's rendering of Macbeth and
constitutes the first bit of Shakespeare translation in Norway since the
Coriolanus of 1818.
[14. Ivar Aasen--_Skrifter i Samling_--Christiania. 1911, Vol. 11, p.
165. Reprinted from _Prøver af Landsmaalet i Norge, Første Udgave_.
Kristiania. 1853, p. 114.]
Aasen knew that Landsmaal was adequate to the expression of the
homely and familiar. But would it do for belles lettres?
Han lær aat Saar, som aldri kende Saar.-- Men hyst!--Kvat Ljos er dat
dar upp i glaset? Dat er i Aust, og Julia er Soli. Sprett, fagre Sol, og tyn
dan Maane-Skjegla, som alt er sjuk og bleik av berre Ovund, at hennar
Taus er fagrar' en ho sjølv. Ver inkje hennar Taus; dan Ovundsykja, so
sjukleg grøn er hennar Jomfru-Klædnad; d'er berre Narr, som ber han.
Sleng han av! Ja, d'er mi