Bjornstjerne Bjornson | Page 5

in 1872, together
with "The Bridal March," separately published in the following year,
gives us a complete representation of that phase of his genius which is
best known to the world at large. Here are five stories of considerable
length, and a number of slighter sketches, in which the Norwegian
peasant is portrayed with intimate and loving knowledge. The peasant
tale was no new thing in European literature, for the names of
Auerbach and George Sand, to say nothing of many others, at once
come to the mind. In Scandinavian literature, its chief representative
had been the Danish novelist, Blicher, who had written with insight and
charm of the peasantry of Jutland. But in the treatment of peasant life
by most of Björnson's predecessors there had been too much of the de
haut en bas attitude; the peasant had been drawn from the outside,
viewed philosophically, and invested with artificial sentiment.
Björnson was too near to his own country folk to commit such faults as

these; he was himself of peasant stock, and all his boyhood life had
been spent in close association with men who wrested a scanty living
from an ungrateful soil. Although a poet by instinct, he was not afraid
of realism, and did not shrink from giving the brutal aspects of peasant
life a place upon his canvas. In emphasizing the characteristics of
reticence and _naïveté_ he really discovered the Norwegian peasant for
literary purposes. Beneath the words spoken by his characters we are
constantly made to realize that there are depths of feeling that remain
unexpressed; whether from native pride or from a sense of the
inadequacy of mere words to set forth a critical moment of life, his men
and women are distinguished by the most laconic utterance, yet their
speech always has dramatic fitness and bears the stamp of sincerity.
Jaeger speaks of the manifold possibilities of this laconic method in the
following words:--
"It is as if the author purposely set in motion the reader's fancy and
feeling that they might do their own work. The greatest poet is he who
understands how to awaken fancy and feeling to their highest degree of
self-activity. And this is Björnson's greatness in his peasant novels, that
he has poured from his horn of plenty a wealth of situations and
motives that hold the reader's mind and burn themselves into it, that
become his personal possession just because the author has known how
to suggest so much in so few words."
In some respects, the little sketch called "The Father" is the supreme
example of Björnson's artistry in this kind. There are only a few pages
in all, but they embody the tragedy of a lifetime. The little work is a
literary gem of the purest water, and it reveals the whole secret of the
author's genius , as displayed in his early tales. It is by these tales of
peasant life that Björnson is best known outside of his own country;
one may almost say that it is by them alone that he is really familiar to
English readers. A free translation of "Synnöve Solbakken" was made
as early as 1858, by Mary Howitt, and published under the title of
"Trust and Trial." Translations of the other tales were made soon after
their original appearance, and in some instances have been multiplied.
It is thus a noteworthy fact that Björnson, although four years the junior
of Ibsen, enjoyed a vogue among English readers for a score of years
during which the name of Ibsen was absolutely unknown to them. The
whirligig of time has brought in its revenges of late years, and the long

neglected older author has had more than the proportional share of our
attention than is fairly his due.
In his delineation of the Norwegian peasant character, Björnson was
greatly aided by the study of the sagas, which he had read with
enthusiasm from his earliest boyhood. Upon them his style was largely
formed, and their vivid dramatic representation of the life of the early
Norsemen impressed him profoundly, shaping both his ideals and the
form of their expression. The modern Scandinavian may well be envied
for his literary inheritance from the heroic past. No other European has
anything to compare with it for clean-cut vigor and wealth of romantic
material. The literature which blossomed in Iceland and flourished for
two or three centuries wherever Norsemen made homes for themselves
offers a unique intellectual phenomenon, for nothing like their record
remains to us from any other primitive people. This
"Tale of the Northland of old And the undying glory of dreams,"
proved a lasting stimulus to Björnson's genius, and, during the early
period of his career, which is now under review, it made its influence
felt alike in his tales, his dramas, and