[38] This has been adapted to song by Nordraak; another, “Forward,” has been set to music by Grieg. [39] _Poems and Songs_ by Björnstjerne Björnson, translated by Arthur Hubbell Palmer, from the Norwegian in the original meters, London 1915. By permission of the American-Scandinavian Foundation. [40] _Creative Spirits of the Nineteenth Century_ by Georg Brandes, translated by Rasmus B. Anderson, New York, 1923, p. 345. By permission of Thomas Y. Crowell Co. [41] London and New York, 1925. New edition. [42] Translated by Lee M. Hollander, _Poet Lore_, 1911. [43] Translated by Mary Morison, 1910. [44] New York, 1913. CHAPTER V GIOSUÈ CARDUCCI--ITALIAN POET The prize of 1906 has been awarded: Carducci, Giosuè, Professor in the History of Literature at the University of Bologna, born 1835, died February 16, 1907: “in consideration not only of his wide learning and critical research, but, in the first place, as homage to the plastic energy, the freshness of style, and the lyric strength that distinguish his poetry.”[45] In 1906, when he was seventy years old, Giosuè Carducci, the greatest of living Italian poets of that time, for more than two score years professor at the University of Bologna, was announced the winner of the Nobel prize in literature. As in the case of Mistral, the choice had fallen upon a poet of patriotic influence, although the Italian was far more independent in spirit, with less sentimental devotion to his country. At different periods he had been a critic of both the Liberal and the Monarchial parties; sometimes he had seemed to be vacillating in his political convictions but he had always been an ardent patriot for Italy of the past, with hopes for a future of greater freedom and world influence. Carducci was born at Val di Castello, July 27, 1835. His father, of a Florentine family, was a country doctor who had been imprisoned for political activities before the son was born. When Giosuè was three years old, the family moved to Bolgheri, in Tuscan Maremma; here the boy roamed about the hills and valleys for eleven years; he recalled some of his childhood memories in “Crossing the Tuscan Maremma.” He was educated, in the first place, at home; his father taught him Latin and his mother read to him from the poems of Alfieri. After the turbulent conditions of 1848 the family moved to Florence and he was sent to the Scuole Pie; at eighteen, he was writing _Sapphics and Alcaics_, in which he urged a return to classic meters and early ideals of Italy. His vein of satire was shown in mild attacks upon the church and its restrictions upon progress. Schiller, Byron, and Scott were his favorite authors during a part of this formative period.