the latter's works. Ibsen, too, has been far more widely
translated (and is easier to translate) into English than
Bjornson. Much of the latter's finest work, especially in his
lyrical poetry and his peasant stories, has a charm of diction
that it is almost impossible to reproduce in translation. Ibsen
and Bjornson, who inevitably suggest comparison when either's
work is dealt with, were closely bound by friendship as well as
admiration until a breach was caused by Bjornson's taking offence
at a supposed attack on him in Ibsen's early play The League of
Youth, Bjornson considering himself to be lampooned in the
delineation of one of the characters thereof. The breach,
however, was healed many years later, when, at the time of the
bitter attacks that were made upon Ibsen in consequence of the
publication of Ghosts, Bjornson came into the field of controversy
with a vigorous and generous championing of his rival.

Bjornson's dramatic energies, as was the case with Ibsen in his
early days, first took the form of a series of historical dramas
--Sigurd Slembe, Konge Sverre, and others; and he was intimately
connected with the theatre by being for two periods theatrical
director, from 1857 to 1859 at Bergen and from 1865 to 1867 at
Christiania. Previous to the latter engagement a stipend granted
to him by the Norwegian government enabled him to travel for two
or three years in Europe; and during those years his pen was
never idle--poems, prose sketches, and tales flowing from it in
abundance. De Nygifte (The Newly-Married Couple), the first of
the three plays in the present volume, was produced at the
Christiania theatre in the first year of his directorship there.

The two volumes, Digte og Sange (Poems and Songs) and Arnljot