"Hunger" opened the first period and "Pan" marked its climax, but it
came to an end only with the eight-act drama of "Vendt the Monk" in
1902, and traces of it are to be found in everything that Hamsun ever
wrote. Lieutenant Glahn might survive the passions and defiances of
his youth and lapse into the more or less wistful resignation of Knut
Pedersen from the Northlands, but the cautious, puzzled Knut has
moments when he shows not only the Glahn limp but the Glahn fire.

Just when the second stage found clear expression is a little hard to
tell, but its most characteristic products are undoubtedly the two
volumes now offered to the American public, and it persists more or less
until 1912, when "The Last Joy" appeared, although the first signs of
Hamsun's final and greatest development showed themselves as early as
1904, when "Dreamers" was published. The difference between the second
and the third stages lies chiefly in a maturity and tolerance of vision
that restores the narrator's sense of humour and eliminates his own
personality from the story he has to tell.

Hamsun was twenty-nine when he finished "Hunger," and that was the age
given to one after another of his central figures. Glahn is twenty-nine,
of course, and so is the Monk Vendt. With Hamsun that age seemed to
stand principally for the high water mark of passion. Because of the
fire burning within themselves, his heroes had the supreme courage of
being themselves in utter defiance of codes and customs. Because of that
fire they were capable of rising above everything that life might
bring--above everything but the passing of the life-giving passion
itself. A Glahn dies, but does not grow old.

Life insists on its due course, however, and in reality passion may sink
into neurasthenia without producing suicides. Ivar Kareno discovers it