Eminent Authors of the Nineteenth Century: Literary PortraitsBrandes, Georg
History
Eminent Authors of the Nineteenth Century: Literary Portraits
Brandes, Georg
Literature, Modern -- 19th century -- History and criticism
What is here related in a literal sense of Wergeland may be told in a
higher sense of Björnson. He is the great seed-sower of Norway. This
country is a mountainous land; it is rocky, rugged, and barren. The
seed falls on stony ground, and many a grain is blown away by the wind.
Nevertheless, Björnson perseveres unweariedly in his labors. A large
quantity of his seed has already sprouted; many a tree planted by his
hand is already in blossom, and so far as the fruit is concerned, his
efforts were never designed for the present generation alone.
I.
It is only necessary to bestow a glance upon Björnson, in order to be
convinced how admirably he is equipped by nature for the hot strife a
literary career brings with it in most lands, and especially in the
combat-loving North. Shoulders as broad as his are not often seen, nor
do we often behold so vigorous a form, one that seems as though created
to be chiselled in granite.
There is, perhaps, no labor which so completely excites all the vital
forces, exhausts the nerves, refines and enervates the feelings, as
that of literary production. There has never been the slightest danger,
however, that the exertions of his poetic productiveness would affect
his lungs, as in the case of Schiller, or his spine, as in the case
of Heine; there has been no cause to fear that inimical articles in
the public journals would ever give him his death-blow, as they did
Halvdan, the hero of his drama "Redaktoren" (The Editor), or that he
would yield, as so many modern poets have yielded, to the temptation of
resorting to pernicious stimulants or dissipations, as antidotes for
the overwrought or depleted state of the nervous system, occasioned by
creative activity. Nothing has injured Björnson's spine, his lungs are
without blemish and know no cough, while his shoulders were fashioned
to bear, without discomposure, the rude thrusts which the world gives,
and to return them. As for his nerves, I am convinced that he has not
learned from personal experience the significance of the word. As an
author he is never nervous, neither when he displays his true delicacy,
nor even when he evinces his most marked sentimentality. He has nothing
of the refinement that a light degree of work, duty, or fatigue gives.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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