Powerful as
has been his appeal to the intellect and conscience of the modern
world at large, it has always had a special note of admonition or
of cheer for his own people. With reference to the second of our
two themes, it is sufficient to say that, although the form of verse
was almost wholly abandoned by him during the latter half of his life,
the breath of poetry never ceased to exhale from his work, and the
lyric exuberance of his later prose still recalls to us the singer
of the sixties.
Few productions of modern literature have proved as epoch-
making as the modest little volume called "Synnove Solbakken,"
which appeared in the book shops of Christiania and Copenhagen
in 1857. It was a simple tale of peasant life, an idyl of the
love of a boy and a girl, but it was absolutely new in its
style, and in its intimate revelation of the Norwegian character.
It must be remembered that until the year 1814, Norway had
for centuries been politically united with Denmark, and that
Copenhagen had been the common literary centre of the two
countries. To that city Norwegian writers had gravitated as
naturally as French writers gravitate to Paris. There had
resulted from this condition of things a literature which,
although it owed much to men of Norwegian birth, was essentially
a Danish literature, and must properly be so styled.
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