Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 17.djvu/646

Rh most original writer whom Norway produced and retained at home during the colonial period. Another priest, Jonas Ramus (1649-1718), wrote two important posthumous works in prose, Norriges Kongers Historie (History of the Norse Kings) in 1719, and Norriges Beskrivelse, 1735. The celebrated missionary to Greenland, Hans Egede (1686-1758), wrote several works on his experiences in that country. Peder Hersleb (1689-1757) was the compiler of some popular treatises of Lutheran theology. Frederik Nannestad, bishop of Throndhjem (1693-1774), deserves mention as the founder of the periodical press in Norway, having started a weekly gazette in 1760. The missionary Knud Leem (1697-1774) published a number of philological and topographical works regarding the Lapps of Finmark, one at least of which, his Beskrivelse over Finmarkens Lapper, 1767, still possesses considerable interest. The famous Erik Pontoppidan (1698-1764) cannot be regarded as a Norwegian, for he did not leave Denmark until he was made bishop of Bergen, at the age of forty-nine. On the other hand the far more famous Baron Ludvig Holberg (1684-1754), the chief of Danish writers, belongs to Denmark by everything but birth, having left Norway in childhood.

A few Norsemen of the beginning of the 18th century distinguished themselves, chiefly in science. Of these Johan Ernst Gunnerus (1718-1773), bishop of Throndhjem, was the most eminent; he was the first man who gave close attention to the Norwegian flora. He founded the Norwegian Royal Society of Sciences in 1760, in unison with his friends Gerhard Schöning (1722-1780) the historian and Hans Ström (1726-1797) the zoologist. Of these three friends Schöning deserves the greatest prominence in this place, because he wrote more in Danish and less in Latin than the other two. In belles-lettres Norway began to show vitality only when the century had reached its half-way point. Peder Christofer Stenersen (1723-1776), a writer of occasional verses, merely led the way for Christian Braumann Tullin (1728-1765), a lyrical poet of exquisite genius, whose talent is claimed by Denmark as one of the jewels in the crown of her literature, but who must be mentioned here, because his poetry was not only mainly composed in Christiania, but breathes a local spirit. He has been called the Father of Danish lyrical verse. From Tullin's day for about thirty years Denmark was principally supplied with poets from Norway. That portion of the chronicle of Danish literature which extends between the great names of Evald and Baggesen presents us with hardly a single figure which is not that of a Norseman. The director of the Danish national theatre in 1771 was a Norwegian, Niels Krog Bredal (1733-1778), who was the first to write lyrical dramas in Danish, and who exercised wide influence. A Norwegian, Johan Nordahl Brun (1745-1816), was the principal tragedian of the time, in the French taste. It was a Norwegian, J. H. Wessel (1742-1785), who laughed this taste out of fashion. In 1772 the Norwegian poets were so strong in Copenhagen that they formed a Norske Selskab (Norwegian Society), which exercised a tyranny over contemporary letters which was only shaken when Baggesen appeared. Among the leading writers of this period we can but just mention, besides those above named, Claus Frimann (1746-1829), Peter Harboe Frimann (1752-1839), Claus Fasting (1746-1791), Johan Wibe (1748-1782), Edvard Storm (1749-1794), C. H. Pram (1756-1821), Jonas Rein (1760-1821), Jens Zetlitz (1761-1821), and Lyder Christian Sagen (1771-1850), all of whom, though Norwegians by birth, find their place in the annals of Danish literature. To these poets must be added the philosophers Niels Treschow (1751-1833) and Henrik Steffens (1773-1845), and in later times the poet Johannes Carsten Hauch (1790-1872). There is no example of a writer of importance, born in Norway since 1800, who is counted among Danish authors.

The first form which Norwegian literature took as an independent thing was what was called “Syttendemai-Poesi,” or poetry of the seventeenth of May, that being the day on which Norway obtained her independence and proclaimed her king. Three poets, called the Trefoil, came forward as the inaugurators of Norwegian thought in 1814. Of these Conrad Nicolai Schwach (1793-1860) was the least remarkable. Henrik Anker Bjerregaard (1792-1842), born in the same hamlet of Ringsaker as Schwach, had a much brighter and more varied talent. His poems, collected at Christiania in 1829, contain some charming studies from nature. He brought out a tragedy of Magnus Barfods Sönner (Magnus Barefoot's Sons) and a lyrical drama, Fjeldeventyret (The Adventure in the Mountains), 1828. The third member of the Trefoil, Mauritz Christopher Hansen (1794-1842), was a laborious and fecund worker in many fields. His novels, of which Ottar de Bretagne, 1819, was the earliest, were much esteemed in their day, and after Hansen s death were collected and edited, with a memoir by Schwach. Hansen's Poems, printed at Christiania in 1816, were among the earliest publications of a liberated Norway, but were preceded by a volume of Smaadigte (Short Poems) by all three poets, edited by Schwach in 1815, as a semi-political manifesto. These writers, of no great genius in themselves, did much by their industry and patriotism to form a basis for Norwegian literature to be built upon. They wrote, however, on national themes without much knowledge, and in complete bondage to the conventional forms in vogue in Copenhagen in their youth.

The creator of Norwegian literature, however, was the poet Henrik Arnold Wergeland (1808-1845), a man of great genius and enthusiasm, who contrived within the limits of a life as short as Byron's to concentrate the labours of a dozen ordinary men of letters. He held views in most respects similar to those pronounced by Rousseau and Shelley; he never ceased to preach the dignity of man, the worth of liberty to the individual and of independence to the nation, and the relation of republican politics to a sound form of literature. His own ideal of literature, however, was at first anything but sound. He was the eldest son of Professor Nikolai Wergeland (1780-1848), who had been one of the constitutional assembly who proclaimed the independence of Norway in 1814 at Eidsvold. Nikolai was himself pastor of Eidsvold, and the poet was thus brought up in the very holy of holies of Norwegian patriotism. His earliest efforts in literature were wild and formless. He was full of imagination, but without taste or knowledge. He published poetical farces under the pseudonym of “Siful Sifadda,” trifles unworthy of attention. These were followed, in 1828, by Sinclair's Death, an unsuccessful tragedy; and in 1829 by a volume of lyrical and patriotic poems, which attracted the liveliest attention to his name. At the age of twenty-one he became a power in literature, nay more, an influence in the state. But these writings were coldly received by connoisseurs, and a monster epic, Skabelsen, Mennesket, og Mesias (Creation, Man, and Messiah), which followed in 1830, showed no improvement in style. From 1831 to 1835 Wergeland was submitted to severe satirical attacks from Welhaven and others, and his style became improved in every respect. His popularity waned as his poetry improved, and in 1840 he found himself a really great poet, but an exile from political influence. His Jan van Huysums Blomsterstykke (J. van Huysum's Flower-piece), 1840, Svalen (The Swallow), 1841, Jöden (The Jew), 1842, Jödinden (The Jewess), 1844, and Den Engelske Lods