Bjornstjerne Bjornson

Bjornstjerne Bjornson [with accents]

The Project Gutenberg Etext of Bj?rnstjerne Bj?rnson
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Title: Bj?rnstjerne Bj?rnson
Author: William Morton Payne
Release Date: October, 2003 [Etext #4582] [Yes, we are more than one year ahead of schedule] [This file was first posted on February 11, 2002]
Edition: 10
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO8859-1
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Bj?rnstjerne Bj?rnson 1832-1910 by William Morton Payne, LL.D. Translator of Bj?rnson's "Sigurd Slembe" and Jaeger's "Ibsen," Author of "Little Leaders," Etc.
To Mary
INTRODUCTORY NOTE
When the date of Bj?rnson'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 Bj?rnson'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 Bj?rnson'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.

BJ?RNSTJERNE BJ?RNSON 1832-1910
Eight years ago, taking a bird's-eye view of the mountain peaks of contemporary literature, and writing with particular reference to Bj?rnson'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 pre?minence 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