The Influence of Old Norse Literature on English Literature

The Influence of Old Norse
Literature on English Literature

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Title: The Influence of Old Norse Literature on English Literature
Author: Conrad Hjalmar Nordby
Release Date: October 18, 2004 [eBook #13786]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
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INFLUENCE OF OLD NORSE LITERATURE ON ENGLISH
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THE INFLUENCE OF OLD NORSE LITERATURE UPON
ENGLISH LITERATURE
by
CONRAD HJALMAR NORDBY
1901

Deyr fé deyja frændr, deyr siálfr it sama; en orðstírr deyr aldrigi hveim
er sér góðan getr. _Hávamál_, 75.

Cattle die, kindred die, we ourselves also die; but the fair fame never
dies of him who has earned it. Thorpe's Edda.

PREFATORY NOTE.
The present publication is the only literary work left by its author.
Unfortunately it lacks a few pages which, as his manuscript shows, he
intended to add, and it also failed to receive his final revision. His
friends have nevertheless deemed it expedient to publish the result of
his studies conducted with so much ardor, in order that some memorial
of his life and work should remain for the wider public. To those
acquainted with him, no written words can represent the charm of his
personality or give anything approaching an adequate impression of his
ability and strength of character.
Conrad Hjalmar Nordby was born September 20, 1867, at Christiania,
Norway. At the age of four he was brought to New York, where he was
educated in the public schools. He was graduated from the College of
the City of New York in 1886. From December of that year to June,
1893, he taught in Grammar School No. 55, and in September, 1893, he
was called to his Alma Mater as Tutor in English. He was promoted to
the rank of Instructor in 1897, a position which he held at the time of
his death. He died in St. Luke's Hospital, October 28, 1900. In October,
1894, he began his studies in the School of Philosophy of Columbia
University, taking courses in Philosophy and Education under
Professor Nicholas Murray Butler, and in Germanic Literatures and
Germanic Philology under Professors Boyesen, William H. Carpenter
and Calvin Thomas. It was under the guidance of Professor Carpenter
that the present work was conceived and executed.
Such a brief outline of Mr. Nordby's career can, however, give but an
imperfect view of his activities, while it gives none at all of his
influence. He was a teacher who impressed his personality, not only
upon his students, but upon all who knew him. In his character were
united force and refinement, firmness and geniality. In his earnest work
with his pupils, in his lectures to the teachers of the New York Public
Schools and to other audiences, in his personal influence upon all with
whom he came in contact, he spread the taste for beauty, both of poetry
and of life. When his body was carried to the grave, the grief was not
confined to a few intimate friends; all who had known him felt that

something noble and beautiful had vanished from their lives.
In this regard his career was, indeed, rich in achievement, but when we
consider what, with his large equipment, he might have done in the
world of scholarship, the promise, so untimely blighted, seems even
richer. From early youth he had been a true lover of books. To him they
were not dead things; they palpitated with the life blood of master
spirits. The enthusiasm for William Morris displayed in the present
essay is typical of his feeling for all that he considered best in literature.
Such an enthusiasm, communicated to those about him, rendered him a
vital force in every company where works of creative genius could be a
theme of conversation.
A love of nature and of art accompanied and reinforced this love of
literature; and all combined to produce the effect of wholesome purity
and elevation which continually emanated from him. His influence, in
fact, was largely of that pervasive sort which depends, not on any
special word uttered, and above all, not on any preachment, but upon
the entire character and life of the man. It was for this reason that his
modesty never concealed his strength. He shrunk above all things from
pushing himself forward and demanding public notice, and yet few ever
met him without feeling the force of