Page:History of the Literature of the Scandinavian North.djvu/317

Rh in the most violent controversies with his contemporaries, which, of course, prevented him from attaining his full development.

Welhaven maintained throughout his long career as an author and university professor the principles which he had advocated in his conflicts with Wergeland. His special department was philosophy, but he also delivered lectures on the history of literature, which were well attended. He wrote several essays on subjects from the Danish-Norwegian literature, notably on Ewald and the Norwegian poets, and this was the first conspicuous attempt to throw light on this important subject. The number of his poems is not very large. They are mostly lyrics, and they are to such a degree finished in style and rich in contents, that they have never been surpassed in Norway. His poetry is mostly of a symbolic character, whether he plunges into the contemplation of nature, which he is particularly fond of doing, or selects a myth or legend as the basis of his poem. Human life is almost always reflected in his poetry. In his romances he followed the way he had himself pointed out, and took his materials from ancient and modern time and from popular traditions, and in so doing he gave a mighty impulse to Norwegian literature. He died in 1873.

Andreas Munch (born 1811) may in many respects be regarded as a spiritual kinsman of Welhaven, though he is not as original as the latter. His poetry is a very graceful and pure though somewhat faint echo of Oehlenschläger's, and this is particularly true of his dramatical works, "Lord William Russell," "Salomon de Caus," "En Aften paa Giske," etc., all of which suffer from the same defects as Oehlenschläger's dramas without even distantly approaching them in poetical power. His tales are more characteristic, the many-hued materials for which he frequently borrows from Norway's