BJÖRNSTJERN BJÖRNSON

“As a tribute to his noble, magnificent, and versatile work as a poet, which has always been distinguished by both the freshness of its inspiration and the rare purity of its spirit.”

To understand the work of this playwright, novelist, poet, and politician it is necessary to understand the times in which he lived.  The dawn of the 20^th Century was a heady time of change.   The Industrial Revolution was firmly established.  The middle class was feeling its power.  Workers were organized, demanding their fair share of the fabulous things being produced.  Universal franchise, organized labor, and Socialism were accepted goals among many.  The horrors of French Revolution and Napoleonic Wars were of a past generation.  The acid attacks of anarchists and the trenches of World War were in an unseeable future.  It was a time ripe for idealism; Björnstjern Björnson was right in the middle of it.

This son of a Norwegian pastor wrote literary criticism for newspapers until he found his muse in the theater.  Growing up in a lush rural area among the agrarian peasantry his lyrical dramas venerated Norse sagas, peasant tales, and country life.  Until 1905 Norway was under the political and cultural control of Sweden, a situation Björnson spent his life resisting and lived to see fulfilled.   His early work venerated Norway’s glorious history in the Middle Ages.  Later, with The Editor and The Bankrupt he was able to fulfill his dream of giving Norway an internationally respected dramatic literature.  His work made him the creator of Norwegian prose.  Björnstjern Björnson’s is Norway’s Francis Scott Key, his poem Ja, vi elsker dette landet is the lyric of the Norwegian national anthem. 

Cultural history, politics, and religion were a part of all of his works.  Between the Battles, Sunny Hill, King Snorre, Sigurd the Bad, and Sigurd Jorsalfar illuminate the cultural and political history of Norway.  The King, Beyond Our Power, and Paul Lange og Tora Parsberg present liberal political causes.  The Heritage of the Kurts proposes education reform.   Beyond Human Might, In God’s Way, and A Gauntlet challenge the Church and Christian dogma. 

I chose to read four works: The King, Beyond Our Power, In God’s Way and a collection of 31 of his poems.  

The King is the least of the four.  First, the subject is outdated.  When it was written (1877), with the exception of Switzerland, kings and queens ruled the countries of Europe.   At the end of the 19^th Century the institution of monarchy was brought into question.  By the mid 20^th Century you could count European monarchs on one hand; all strictly ceremonial.  The King shows the depth to which monarchy can affect a society.  Björnson’s hero is a young man who has just assumed the throne of an unnamed country.  Raised in the palace, he led a protected and isolated life.  After a debauched youth he is forced to reconsider his values when soundly rejected by the daughter of a republican dissenter his courts had imprisoned on a charge of treason.   On self examination he finds the charade of divine rule a fraud and resolves to change the system from within.  His first step is to woe Clara, the commoner governess who rejected him, to become his wife and help him humanize the monarchy.  It is disaster, too many have too much at stake to trust government to the populace.  A divine king is required to keep an order beneficial to the ruling class; the young king’s efforts are thwarted.   As in many plays of this era the primary characters wind up dead.

Beyond Our Power sounded familiar from the first words.  I was well into the play when it occurred to me, “This is George Bernard Shaw”.  A few years ago, inspired by My Fair Lady, I read a bunch of Shaw’s plays.  We will get to him as he won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1925.  I would not be at all surprised if Björnson was one of Shaw’s inspirations.  Beyond Our Power is a dark play.  It opens deep in the bowls of a Norwegian community where desperate people live in caves.  Appropriately, the area is called “Hell”.  There is a general strike in process and leaders are rallying the people to hang on.  The primary characters are Elias and Rachel, siblings who have inherited some wealth.  Rachel, a practical idealist, uses the family mansion to establish a hospital which she runs for all in the community.  Elias, an anarchist, supports the strike by a desperate action; he dynamites a palace where the employers are meeting to organize against the strike.  Of the strikers only he stays in the palace to signal the proper moment.  The message is clear.  The employers are shown as callous and greedy; the employees pawns in the production process, cowed and in desperate need of leadership.  Three kinds of leadership are emerge: Rachel the persistent caregiver, Herre the local organizer, and Elias the all or nothing radical.  This play is one in a long line of early 20^th Century literary efforts to raise the general level of society by dignifying the status of labor.

In God’s Way is a different form with a different message.  As a novel Björnson is able to flesh out his characters and make the reader a part of the relationship.   Again we have siblings as primary characters.  Kallem and Josephine are brother and sister.  Edward Kallem is a medical doctor running a hospital which mostly treats tuberculoses, rampant at the time.  He is married to the beautiful and talented Ragni.  Josephine is a bright young mother whose husband is the Reverend Ole Tuft, local cleric.  Both husbands are deeply committed to their professions and both wives are struggling with their roles as professional wives.  The Reverend is very narrow in his views, today we would call him a Fundamentalist, which galls his wife.  When he insists she support him she rebels, challenging the dogma.  Dr. Kallem is consumed with the problems of his patients and asks his wife to support him by looking to some of the social needs of the families of the sick.  Ragni complies by taking under her wing a young man who shows promise on the piano, an instrument on which she is skilled.  The boy falls hopelessly in love with his mentor and the rumor mill makes it into something scandalous.  Ragni is so crushed by the gossip and the fear of her husband’s reaction she contracts tuberculoses and dies.  Dr. Kallem is infuriated that rather than crush the chatter his brother-in-law preaches a sermon on adultery which the community takes as confirmation.  Not long after the son of the minister and his wife comes down with a complicated illness requiring an operation which only Dr. Kallem can perform.  After saving their son the doctor maintains his distance.  Distressed by the separation from her brother and wishing to thank him Josephine tries to visit. When turned away by a servant she writes.  He replies by sending Regni’s correspondence showing how the gossip sucked the life from this vibrant woman.  Josephine blames herself for supporting her husband.   The distress of the death of Regni and the near death of their son forces the Reverend and his wife to take a second look at their faith.  They conclude that acceptance is more important than belonging.   The exclusivity of their faith becomes less important than the welfare of their fellow man.  By trying to impose their agenda they were getting in God’s way. 

Although I enjoyed In God’s Way I would recommend Morris West’s fiction and Karen Armstrong’s A Case for God as more contemporary and easier to read.  As I have said poetry is not a strong suite of mine.  I am including the following as that which most appealed to me.

THE TREE

Ready with leaves and with buds stood the tree.

“Shall I take them?” the frost said, now puffing with glee.

“Oh my, no, let them stand,

Till flowers are at hand!”

All trembling from tree-top to root came the plea.

Flowers unfolding the birds gladly sung.

“Shall I take them?” the wind said and merrily swung.

“Oh my, no, let them stand,

Till cherries are at hand!”

Protested the tree, while quivering hung.

The cherries came forth ‘neath the sun’s glowing eye.

“Shall I take them?” a rosy young girl’s eager cry.

Oh my, yes, you can take,

I’ve kept them for your sake!”

Low bending its branches, the tree brought them nigh.

I mentioned European politics becoming much involved in the Nobel Prize.  By 1904 it was there big time, so much so the committee decided to split the prize between a French poet and a Spanish playwright.  I will take Frédéric Mistral first.  I will have to look for a CD with the folk music of Provence.  That will go with fish soup and red wine while I enjoy the bard of Provençal.