was first performed
in 1879, to be followed by Det ny System (The New System) later in
the same year. These works aroused keen controversy, but were not such
popular stage successes as his earlier plays. Moreover, about this time,
on his return from a visit to America, he plunged into the vortex of
political controversy as an aggressive radical. He was a vigorous and
very persuasive orator; and in that capacity, as well as in that of
writer of political articles and essays, was an uncompromising foe to
the opportunist theories which he held to be degrading the public life
of his country. The opposition he aroused by his fearless championship
of whatever he considered a rightful cause was so bitter that he was
eventually obliged to retire from Norway for two or three years. So much
did this temporarily affect his literary reputation at home, that when,
in 1883, he had written En Hanske (A Gauntlet--the third play here
translated) he found at first considerable difficulty in getting it
performed. Later, however, he became a political hero to a large section
of his compatriots, and by degrees won back fully the place he had
occupied in their hearts. He enthusiastically espoused the cause of
the projected separation from Sweden, though when that matter came to a
crisis he exercised an invaluable influence on the side of moderation.

For the remainder of his life he continued to be prolific in literary
production, with an ever increasing renown amongst European men of
letters, and an ever deepening personal hold upon the affections of
his fellow-countrymen. In 1903 he was awarded the Nobel prize for
literature. During his later years he, like Ibsen, was a determined
opponent of the movement to replace the Dano-Norwegian language, which
had hitherto been the literary vehicle of Norwegian writers, by the
"Bonde-Maal"--or "Ny Norsk" ("New Norwegian"), as it has lately been
termed. This is an artificial hybrid composed from the Norwegian peasant
dialects, by the use of which certain misguided patriots were (and
unfortunately still are) anxious to dissociate their literature from
that of Denmark. Bjornson, and with him most of the soberer spirits
amongst Norwegian writers, had realised that the door which had so long
shut out Norway from the literature of Europe must be, as he put it,
opened from the inside; and he rightly considered that the ill-judged
"Bonde-Maal" movement could only have the result of wedging the door
more ti