Essays on Scandinavian Literature | Page 3

and the calm fjord where you might drift blissfully along, as it were,
suspended in the midst of the vast, blue, ethereal space. And when the
summer vacation came, with its glorious freedom and irresponsibility,
he would roam at his own sweet will through forest and field, until
hunger and fatigue forced him to return to his father's parsonage.
After several years of steadily unsuccessful study, Björnson at last
passed the so-called examen artium, which admitted him to the
University of Christiania. He was now a youth of large, almost athletic
frame, with a handsome, striking face, and a pair of blue eyes which no
one is apt to forget who has ever looked into them. There was a certain
grand simplicity and naïveté in his manner, and an exuberance of
animal spirits which must have made him an object of curious interest
among his town-bred fellow-students. But his University career was of
brief duration. All the dimly fermenting powers of his rich nature were
now beginning to clarify, the consciousness of his calling began to
assert itself, and the demand for expression became imperative. His
literary début was an historic drama entitled "Valborg," which was
accepted for representation by the directors of the Christiania Theatre,
and procured for its author a free ticket to all theatrical performances; it
was, however, never brought on the stage, as Björnson, having had his
eyes opened to its defects, withdrew it of his own accord.
At this time the Norwegian stage was almost entirely in the hands of
the Danes, and all the more prominent actors were of Danish birth.
Theatrical managers drew freely on the dramatic treasures of Danish
literature, and occasionally, to replenish the exchequer, reproduced a
French comedy or farce, whose epigrammatic pith and vigor were more

than half-spoiled in the translation. The drama was as yet an exotic in
Norway; it had no root in the national soil, and could accordingly in no
respect represent the nation's own struggles and aspirations. The critics
themselves, no doubt, looked upon it merely as a form of amusement, a
thing to be wondered and stared at, and to be dismissed from the mind
as soon as the curtain dropped. Björnson, whose patriotic soul could
not endure the thought of this abject foreign dependence, ascribed all
the existing abuses to the predominance of the Danish element, and in a
series of vehement articles attacked the Danish actors, managers, and
all who were in any way responsible for the unworthy condition of the
national stage. In return he reaped, as might have been expected, an
abundant harvest of abuse, but the discussion he had provoked
furnished food for reflection, and the rapid development of the
Norwegian drama during the next decade is, no doubt, largely traceable
to his influence.
The liberty for which he had yearned so long, Björnson found at the
International Students' Reunion of 1856. Then the students of the
Norwegian and Danish Universities met in Upsala, where they were
received with grand festivities by their Swedish brethren. Here the poet
caught the first glimpse of a greater and freer life than moved within
the narrow horizon of the Norwegian capital. This gay and careless
student-life, this cheerful abandonment of all the artificial shackles
which burden one's feet in their daily walk through a bureaucratic
society, the temporary freedom which allows one without offence to
toast a prince and hug a count to one's bosom--all this had its influence
upon Björnson's sensitive nature; it filled his soul with a happy
intoxication and with confidence in his own strength. And having once
tasted a life like this he could no more return to what he had left behind
him.
The next winter we find him in Copenhagen, laboring with an intensity
of creative ardor which he had never known before. His striking
appearance, the pithy terseness of his speech, and a certain naïve
self-assertion and impatience of social restraints made him a notable
figure in the polite and somewhat effeminate society of the Danish
capital. There was a general expectation at that time that a great poet

was to come, and although Björnson had as yet published nothing to
justify the expectation, he found the public of Copenhagen ready to
recognize in him the man who was to rouse the North from its long
intellectual torpor, and usher in a new era in its literature. It is needless
to say that he did not discourage this belief, for he himself fervently
believed that he would before long justify it. The first proof of his
strength he gave in the tale "Synnöve Solbakken" (Synnöve
Sunny-Hill), which he published in an illustrated weekly, and afterward
in book-form. It is a very unpretending little story, idyllic in tone, but
realistic in its coloring, and redolent of the pine