Essays on Scandinavian Literature

Björnstjerne Björnson's influence on everyday Norwegian speech provides the starting point for Hjalmar Hjorth Boyesen's studies of Scandinavian writers. These essays combine accounts of authors' lives with judgments about their poems, plays and fiction. The contents range from Björnson, Alexander Kielland and Jonas Lie to Hans Christian Andersen, contemporary Danish literature, Georg Brandes and Esaias Tegnér. Boyesen's preface explains how a planned literary history grew into more extensive studies of individual writers.

The opening portrait follows Björnson from a mountain parish and his father's household to school and the theatre. Later, Boyesen examines Lie's treatment of marriage, personal independence and maritime life, comparing his fiction with other novelists' work. Readers interested in literary criticism can see how biography, national culture and social questions shape Boyesen's assessments. His strong opinions make the volume useful for understanding the terms in which Scandinavian writing was discussed in the late nineteenth century.