BJÖRNSTJERNE BJÖRNSON

(1832-)

BY WILLIAM M. PAYNE


Of the two great writers who have, more than any others, made it possible
for Norway to share in the comity of intellectual intercourse so
characteristic of the modern literary movement, it must be granted that
Björnson is, more distinctly than Ibsen, the representative of their
common nationality. Both are figures sufficiently commanding to belong,
in a sense, to the literature of the whole world, and both have had a
marked influence upon the ideals of other peoples than that from which
they sprung; but the wider intellectual scope of Ibsen has been gained
at some sacrifice of the strength that comes from taking firm root in
one's native soil, and speaking first and foremost to the hearts of
one's fellow-countrymen. What we may call the cosmopolitan standpoint of
the greater part of his work has made its author less typically a
Norwegian than Björnson has always remained. It is not merely that the
one writer has chosen to spend the best years of his life in countries
not his own, while the other has never long absented himself from the
scarred and storm-beaten shores of the land, rich in historic memories
and "dreams of the saga-night," that gave him birth and nurture.
Tourguénieff lived apart from his fellow-countrymen for as many years as
Ibsen has done, yet remained a Russian to the core. It is rather a