FREE BOOKS

Author's List




PREV.   NEXT  
|<   53   54   55   56   57   58   59   60   61   62   63   64   65   66   67   68   69   70   71   72   73   74   75   76   77  
78   79   80   81   82   83   84   85   86   87   88   89   90   91   92   93   94   95   96   97   98   99   100   101   102   >>   >|  
ch, and published in his own magazine, _For Hjemmet_,[6] in April, 1864. Munch rarely rises above mediocrity and his tribute to the bard of Avon is the very essence of it. He begins: I disse Dage gaar et vaeldigt Navn Fra Mund til Mund, fra Kyst til Kyst rundt Jorden-- Det straaler festligt over fjernest Havn, Og klinger selv igjennem Krigens Torden, Det slutter alle Folk i Aandens Favn, Og er et Eenheds Tegn i Striden vorden-- I Stjerneskrift det staaer paa Tidens Bue, Og leder Slaegterne med Hjertelue. [6. Vol. V, p. 572.] and, after four more stanzas, he concludes: Hos os har ingen ydre Fest betegnet Vort Folks Tribut til denne store Mand. Er vi af Hav og Fjelde saa omhegnet, At ei hans Straaler traenge til os kan? Nei,--Nordisk var hans Aand og netop egnet Til at opfattes af vort Norden-Land, Og mer maaske end selv vi tro og taenke, Har Shakespeare brudt for os en fremmed Laenke. One has a feeling that Munch awoke one morning, discovered from his calendar that Shakespeare's birthday was approaching, and ground out this poem to fill space in _Hjemmet_. But his intentions are good. No one can quarrel with the content. And when all is said, he probably expressed, with a fair degree of accuracy, the feeling of his time. It remains but to note a detail or two. First, that the poet, even in dealing with Shakespeare, found it necessary to draw upon the prevailing "Skandinavisme" and label Shakespeare "Nordisk"; second, the accidental truth of the closing couplet. If we could interpret this as referring to Wergeland, who _did_ break the chains of foreign bondage, and gave Norway a place in the literature of the world, we should have the first reference to an interesting fact in Norwegian literary history. But doubtless we have no right to credit Munch with any such acumen. The couplet was put into the poem merely because it sounded well. More important than this effusion of bad verse from the poet of fashion was a little article which Paul Botten Hansen wrote in _Illustreret Nyhedsblad_[7] in 1865. Botten Hansen had a fine literary appreciation and a profound knowledge of books. The effort, therefore, to give Denmark and Norway a complete translation of Shakespeare was sure to meet with his sympathy. In 1861 Lembcke began his revision of Foersom's work, and, although it must have come up to Norway from Copenhagen almost immediately, no allusion to it is found in periodic
PREV.   NEXT  
|<   53   54   55   56   57   58   59   60   61   62   63   64   65   66   67   68   69   70   71   72   73   74   75   76   77  
78   79   80   81   82   83   84   85   86   87   88   89   90   91   92   93   94   95   96   97   98   99   100   101   102   >>   >|  



Top keywords:

Shakespeare

 

Norway

 

Nordisk

 

feeling

 

Hansen

 

Botten

 

Hjemmet

 

literary

 

couplet

 

closing


interpret

 

chains

 
foreign
 

bondage

 

Wergeland

 
referring
 

degree

 

accuracy

 

remains

 
expressed

content

 

prevailing

 

Skandinavisme

 

dealing

 
detail
 

literature

 

accidental

 
Denmark
 

complete

 

translation


effort

 

appreciation

 
knowledge
 

profound

 

sympathy

 

Copenhagen

 

immediately

 
periodic
 
allusion
 

Lembcke


revision

 

Foersom

 

Nyhedsblad

 

Illustreret

 

credit

 

quarrel

 

doubtless

 
acumen
 

history

 

Norwegian