Herman Wildenvey

Herman Wildenvey

Herman Theodor Wildenvey (born Herman Theodor Portaas ; born July 20, 1885 in Mjøndalen , Nedre Eiker municipality , Buskerud province , Norway ; † September 27, 1959 in Larvik , Vestfold province , Norway) was one of the most widely read Norwegian poets of the 20th century. To a lesser extent, he also wrote prose and drama .

Life

Childhood and school education

Portåsen farm where Herman Wildenvey grew up (photo from 2013)

Herman Wildenvey was born out of wedlock in 1885 on the Smedjordet farm in Mjøndalen, 12 kilometers west of the town of Drammen . His father, a pietist farmer, had separated from Herman's mother while pregnant and married her younger sister. When the child was three years old, the father brought him to the Portåsen farm high in the forest, while his birth mother moved from place to place and later ran the household for a timber merchant in the valley. In his own opinion, Wildenvey grew up “almost without parents”; He sometimes referred to his mother as "Aunt Hanna" or even "Aunt Mama". The confused family relationships contributed to the fact that 1886 was considered the year of his birth in some cases well into the 20th century. The grandmother, who familiarized him with folk tradition and taught him to write before he went to school, became the most important reference person for the adolescent.

After completing elementary school , he had the opportunity to spend a year at the Buskerud Nedre Amtskole , a kind of mobile provincial school for young people after confirmation . The school was run by the "strange enlightenment nomad" Engebret Moe Færden, an unorthodox thinking theologian who moved with his educational institution from place to place and held courses for the rural youth for one to two years. Here Wildenvey and a classmate edited the school newspaper for which the first, as yet clumsy texts were written. In 1902 he succeeded in working as a freelancer for the daily Drammen Blad , in which he was also able to place a few poems. He successfully asked the newspaper's publisher to assist him in editing a small volume of poetry. At the age of 17, Wildenvey presented the Campanula collection - under his real name Portaas - which , however, received little attention.

Kristiania, United States, Copenhagen

Although he came from a modest background and his pious father considered every earthly scholarship to be "vain spiritual corruption", he tried to get a higher education. After attending secondary school in Hokksund , he took a one-year Abitur preparatory course in the capital, Kristiania, from autumn 1903 . The diversions of the big city and the odd jobs to which he was forced due to his economic situation, however, kept him from a concentrated study. When an uncle from Minnesota suggested emigrating to the United States and enclosed the ticket for the crossing with his letter, Wildenvey did not hesitate and in June 1904 boarded the steamer Norge . However , the ship did not reach its destination port of New York . It hit a shoal near the islet of Rockall west of the Hebrides and sank . The largest shipping disaster in the North Atlantic up to that point in time cost 635 of the 795 people on board their lives. Wildenvey got into one of the few lifeboats and was rescued by the trawler Salvia , which brought the castaways to the English port city of Grimsby . Shortly afterwards, he came to Boston on the Saxonia from Liverpool . From there he reached the destination of his journey, the small town of Hutchinson in southern Minnesota, by train.

At his uncle's request, he first attended a seminary in Saint Paul , but without much success. What followed was a restless and disoriented time in which he took on several short-term jobs. He worked in agriculture, as a substitute teacher in South Dakota and as a journalist for Scandinavian papers. In California , he entered the service of the American Navy and during his first deployment reached the coast of the Philippines , where he was unable to go ashore due to illness. Because of his weak physique, he was "honorably discharged" by the armed forces. A little later he got hired on the German ship Ramses , which sailed along the Pacific coast. He narrowly escaped the 1906 earthquake that set in when the ship had just left the San Francisco region behind. With the Ramses and another German ship, he headed for port cities in Guatemala , Costa Rica and Chile .

Via Hamburg he traveled back to Norway, where he took the pseudonym Herman Wildenvey, which he derived from the name of a stream near his birthplace. In the summer of 1907 he worked as a tour guide for a hotel in Otta . Since there were hardly any tourists because of the bad weather, he had ample opportunity to revise poems that had been written during his travels. In the autumn he submitted his texts to the Gyldendal publishing house . The local poetry editor Vilhelm Krag , himself a successful writer, ordered Wildenvey to come to his home and had his poems read to him. His verdict was: "I would be a fool if I didn't see his talent."

On December 8, 1907 Gyldendal published the volume of poetry Nyinger (for example: Campfire; see section Artistic Creation ), which is today considered Wildenvey's actual debut book and one of his most important publications. Many positive reviews ensured that the first edition of the 66-page book was sold out within two weeks. The well-known author and critic Nils Kjær expressed his amazement in the newspaper Verdens Gang at the fact that "in the midst of all the literature, a real poet has unbelievably appeared". His tone, which was perceived as refreshing and unsentimental, was so well received by the audience that over 10,000 copies of the subsequent volumes, which appeared in 1908, 1911, 1913 and 1916, were sold - at a time when Norway had barely more than two million inhabitants. As early as 1917, on the occasion of Nyinger 's 10th anniversary , Gyldendal published an anthology with Wildenvey's best poems. Its popularity also gradually manifested itself in extremely well-attended lecture tours and readings.

After Nyinger was published , Wildenvey made several trips abroad, including to Rome and, for the first time, to Paris . In the autumn of 1911 Wildenvey met Jonette Pauline “Gisken” Kramer-Andreassen, who was seven years his junior from the Lofoten region , and whom he married on February 4, 1912. Shortly afterwards the couple moved to Copenhagen , where they lived for almost ten years and got to know numerous Danish artists (e.g. Piet Hein ). In 1922, the Wildenveys' apartment was completely destroyed in a fire, so the couple decided to move back to Norway.

Stavern

Wildenveys house Hergisheim in Stavern

Since they had lost everything in the fire, Gisken and Herman Wildenvey stayed temporarily in a hotel in Stavern (until 1930 Fredriksvern ), a small town on the Norwegian south coast. The couple liked it so much near the sea that they had their own house built there, which was ready to move into by the New Year of 1928. After her first name Her one and Gis ken they called their new home Hergis home. In the white wooden house, Wildenvey put together further volumes of poetry and tried several times to gain a foothold in other genres . His ambition was directed particularly towards the renewal of the verse drama , albeit largely without success. His only novel , which was also received with reluctance, was published in 1928 under the title Et herrens år (One Year of the Lord). Wildenvey published his first autobiographical text in 1932 at the age of 47. He later transformed it into a trilogy (1937–1940), which also appeared in Germany with illustrations by Tore Hamsun . At the same time, his wife began to establish herself as a writer. The first book by Gisken Wildenvey , a volume of short stories , had been rejected by criticism in 1925. Her Andrine tetralogy (1929–1955), translated into several languages, found many readers; the second volume in the series was successfully filmed in Norway in 1952. Hergisheim had thus become the place of residence and production of two writers. In addition, the house gradually developed into a meeting place for artist friends.

As a poet, Herman Wildenvey achieved a fame like hardly any other author of his generation. His annual appearances in the auditorium of the University of Oslo , which even the Norwegian King Haakon VII regularly attended, became an established tradition . Many of Wildenvey's poems by important composers, including Johan Halvorsen , Christian Sinding , Geirr Tveitt , Eyvind Alnæs and Ludvig Nielsen , were already set to music during his lifetime . In 1931 the Storting , the Norwegian Parliament, granted him an annual artist fee. In 1955, four years before his death, he was appointed commander of the Order of Saint Olav .

Gisken and Herman Wildenvey's marriage remained childless, but in 1941 the couple adopted their daughter Hanna. Wildenvey died in a nursing home in Larvik in 1959. His grave is in the so-called Grove of Honor at Vår Frelsers Gravlund cemetery in Oslo.

Artistic creation

Early lyric

After Wildenvey's Nyinger Collection was published in December 1907, hardly a critic failed to point out the new and fresh nature of the poems. The self-confident, almost nonchalant tone, a certain disrespect in the ductus , with a great sense of rhythm at the same time was emphasized. Wildenvey himself addressed his self-image as a poet in the first text of the volume when he wrote: “I am, the devil, not a poet, although I would like to be one ... / I am washed into the world by a solar current, that's right ! ”In retrospect, the well-known playwright Helge Krog recalled the impact of Wildenvey's debut with the words:“ Has a poet ever introduced himself more proud, happier, happier? It was an experience, a liberation, even a joy to read these verses for the first time. Here really was a new youth, a new tone, a touch that you had to listen to. "

The contemporary assessment of Wildenvey's first literary works as innovative started not least with the word Nyinger , the title of the debut collection. On the one hand it denotes a certain type of open fire, preferably in the forest, but also contains the syllable ny (new). This word significantly influenced the reception of the first few years. Later analyzes put this assessment into perspective and emphasized the links to tradition. The literary historian Leif Longum stated that Wildenvey hardly stood for a “radical reorientation” and that he had often stuck to familiar forms of verse . The influence of the neo-romantic 1890s, which produced some strong poets in Norway , is evident in many details . The poeticization of language, a robust subjectivism and echoes of vitalism emerge clearly . Wildenvey's characteristic peculiarities include the collision of solemn rhetoric and deliberately prosaic expression, a coexistence of “a poetic holiday and sober everyday life”. Formally, while maintaining the rhyme , he falls back on strikingly long verses, which often follow a Trochaic meter , but are nonetheless based to a certain extent on oral speech. His criticism of bourgeois Philistine society , which is typical of the time , never grows into open revolt, but manifests itself through irony or a gesture of wonder. These specifics were already fully developed in his first publications, also in Nyinger :

Wildenvey caricature in the satirical magazine Korsaren , 1908

”No, vår Gud er ingen avgud for en Moses eller to.
Han he hele universets director and overhode!
Vil I vite hva han er, o så vent and hearing and tro:
Han er solsjåffør the oppe under større himlers himler.
Og han biler sine soler, sine kloder til de svimler.
Men jege nå ikke lenger at hans infall er så gode,
at han entrance kjører månen mot vår kjære lille klode. ”

“No, our God is not an idol for a Moses or two.
He is the director and head of the whole universe!
Do you want to know what he is, oh so wait and hear and believe:
He is a sun chauffeur up there under heavens with larger skies.
And he drove his suns, his planets, until they were dizzy.
However, I no longer believe that his ideas are so good,
one day he will direct the moon on our little planet. "

- Herman Wildenvey : Excerpt from Vi undres . In: Nyinger (1907).

Many of Herman Wildenvey's texts can be assigned to the sub-genre of love poetry. Typical are situations in which a lyrical ego experiences the interplay of love full of lightheartedness, enjoyment of life and sometimes also licentiousness; but not infrequently the verses also express pain about the fact that love is a fleeting being. In addition, descriptions of nature and metaphysical reflections, which are based on his radical subjectivism, are among the main motifs and themes. These basic elements of Wildenvey's poetry constitute the ideal of a charmingly cheeky troubadour freed from all social constraints, who is amazed by creation and all-nature. Over the years, this romantic idealization threatened to freeze into a stereotype . Even a colleague like Helge Krog, who was actually positive about Wildenvey, saw the danger of a "vain navel gaze". Wildenvey himself knew that too narrow a thematic limitation would lead him to a dead end. His band Kjærtegn (caresses) from 1916, which represents a high point in the work Wildeveys according to many literary scholars, for the first time contained a cycle with native songs in which he explicitly - and in turn, with recourse to the 1890s - with the landscape and culture of his childhood places grapples. Serious poems influenced by the outbreak of World War I represent a counterpoint to this section and also mark an expansion of the repertoire.

Development from around 1918

After the war, the religious considerations in Wildenvey's work came to light more clearly, without the poet giving up his classic themes - love, summer, nature. By conceiving the beauty of nature as “the reflection of a greater beauty” ( Fiken av tistler , 1925) or transfigured the moment as “the peak of eternity” ( Dagenes sang , 1930), he provided the immediate joy of existence with a dimension of depth, the at the beginning of his oeuvre was only just beginning to develop. Nonetheless, he retained his tendency to pointed, joking formulations and his sense of rhythm.

Knut Hamsun

When in the 1930s the left-wing press called for solidarity with the workers and small farmers - that is, with a class of his own - Wildenvey reacted with strong rejection. Similar to his role model Knut Hamsun , whose poems he had already read in San Francisco, he refused to define himself through a social context. Instead he counted himself, with a phrase reminiscent of Hamsun, to the "nobility of ability". Hamsun's pronounced individualism, but not his political stance, also prompted Wildenvey to defend him during the Ossietzky debate in Norway. Hamsun had defamed the German concentration camp prisoner and pacifist Carl von Ossietzky in a newspaper article in 1935, among other things as a “peculiar friend of peace”.

During the German occupation of Norway in World War II , Wildenvey continued his poetry production, but did not publish a book. In 1946, his first volume of poetry in eleven years was published under the symbolic title Filomele , named after a figure in Greek mythology who was transformed into a songbird to protect himself from brutal persecutors. Several poems clearly show the time they were written - and in very different ways. On the one hand, he sets unspecified “slogans” against the familiar voices of the forest, on the other hand, apart from enthusiasm for nature, in the haunting poem Studentene i Stavern (The Students in Stavern) he describes the march of starved resistance fighters into the nearby area, ordered by the occupying forces The port city of Larvik, from where the young people who were previously in a prisoner camp in Stavern were sent to German concentration camps . Filomele achieved a record circulation of 15,000 copies and would be Wildenvey's last major publication. His collections, which were then published until his death, contain many occasional poems and only a few texts that come close to the level of his best phases of production.

Drama, prose, adaptations

Just three years after Nyinger's publication , Herman Wildenvey went public with his first play : Ringsgang (1910), a broad-based verse drama that bears similarities to Henrik Ibsen's Peer Gynt and Knut Hamsun's play Munken Vendt . The protagonist is an elk with the meaningful name Ringgang, who leaves his homeland, survives a shipwreck and returns to his homeland. Despite a rather reserved reception, Wildenvey was to occupy this early poetic autobiography for decades; In 1948 he published a new version of the drama in the form of a trilogy. All of the plays from his pen converge in the fact that they have less of a dramatic conflict , but rather work primarily through rhyme and rhythm.

Also early, in the war year 1915, the book Brændende Hjerter (Burning Hearts), Wildenvey's first prose work, was published . It brings together several short stories, including the cover story, which depicts the life of a restless poet in the capital. The text gains literary value primarily through its time coloring and through a series of interspersed poems. Artistically more successful are his “Forays through the homeland”, which appeared in 1924 and emphatically prove the great importance the places of his childhood, which he often visited as an adult, had for his life and writing. Wildenvey has been described several times as a talented prose writer, but with his epic works, u. a. with his only novel, the audience was less heard than with his poetry. The only exception here are his memory books.

Wildenvey also made a name for himself as a post-poet . While his Norwegian version of Shakespeare's As You Like It 1912 was commissioned for the Nationaltheatret in Kristiania, he had a personal acquaintance with Ernest Hemingway , whom he had met on one of his trips to Paris. In 1930 the novel In Another Land appeared in Wildenvey's translation. Before that, he was responsible for a Norwegian edition of the book of songs by Heinrich Heine . He later translated, among other things, Aesop's fables .

Awards

• 1935 bequest from the Gyldendal publishing house
• 1955 Dobloug Prize of the Swedish Academy (for the complete work)

Works

Own works

1902 Campanula , poems 1907 Nyinger , poems 1908 Digte , poems 1910 ring walk , verse drama 1911 Prismer , poems 1913 Lys over land , comedy 1913 Årets eventyr , poems 1915 Brændende Hjerter , prose / poetry 1916 Kjærtegn , poems 1917 Flygtninger , poems 1919 Hemmeligheter , poems 1920 Troll i ord , poems 1920 Den glemte have (adaptation of Campanula ) 1921 Nedfallsfrugt , prose 1923 Ildorkesteret , poems 1924 Streiftog i hjembygden , prose 1925 Fiken av tistler , poems

1926 Der falder stjerner , verse drama 1928 Et Herrens år , novel 1930 Dagenes sang poems 1931 Høstens lyre , poems 1932 På ville veier , memories 1935 Stjernenes speil , poems 1936 En ung manns fluctuates , verse drama 1937 Vingehesten og verden (German: My Pegasus and the World ), memories 1938 Den nye rytmen , memories 1940 En lykkelig tid , memories 1946 Filomele , poems 1947 Ved sangens kilder , poems 1948 ring walk , verse drama 1952 Polyhymnia , poems 1953 Ugler til Athens , poems 1956 Soluret , poems 1969 Efterklang (from the estate, edited by Gisken Wildenvey)

Re-seals

• 1912 William Shakespeare: As you like it
• 1926 Paul Géraldy: Toi et moi
• 1929 Heinrich Heine: Book of songs
• 1930 Ernest Hemingway: A Farewell to Arms
• 1931 Liam O'Flaherty: Mr. Gilhooley
• 1936 Albert Halper: Union Square
• 1942 Aesop: (selection of his fables)

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Bjarte Birkeland: Herman Wildenvey. In: Edvard Beyer (Ed.): Norges Litteraturhitorie . 8 volumes. Oslo 1995, volume 4, p. 598.
2. ↑ Quoted from Tom Lotherington: Herman Wildenvey - under det skjønnes skjønne fane. In: Kjell Heggelund u. a. (Ed.): Forfatternes literaturhistorie. 4 Vols. Vol. 3: Fra Herman Wildenvey til Tarjei Vesaas. Oslo 1981, pp. 7-16, here: p. 10.
3. ↑ Herman Wildenvey: My Pegasus and the World . The only authorized translation by Elisabeth Ihle, Berlin 1938, p. 8.
4. ↑ ^{a b} Tom Lotherington: Herman Wildeney. In: Store Norske Leksikon. Retrieved April 1, 2013.
5. ↑ ^{a b c d e f g} Quoted from Herman Wildenvey - mer enn en rimsmed! ( Memento from April 28, 2013 in the web archive archive.today ), www.wildenvey.com. Retrieved March 20, 2013.
6. ↑ Herman Wildenvey: My Pegasus and the World . The only authorized translation by Elisabeth Ihle, Berlin 1938, p. 96.
7. ↑ Herman Wildenvey: My Pegasus and the World . The only authorized translation by Elisabeth Ihle, Berlin 1938, p. 103.
8. ↑ Per Kristian Sebak: Titanic's Predecessor. The SS Norge Disaster of 1904 , Laksevåg 2004.
9. ↑ Herman Wildenvey: My Pegasus and the World . The only legitimate translation by Elisabeth Ihle, Berlin 1938, pp. 185 ff.
10. ↑ Herman Wildenvey: My Pegasus and the World . The only authorized translation by Elisabeth Ihle, Berlin 1938, p. 81 f.
11. ↑ Gisken Wildenvey , Fylkeseksikon. nrk.no. Retrieved March 20, 2013.
12. ↑ Audun Knappen: Wildenvey, Hermann - Et øyeblikksportrett . In: Terra Buskerud. Retrieved April 24, 2013
13. ↑ Herman Wildenvey: Nyinger. Quoted from Bjarte Birkeland: Herman Wildenvey. In: Edvard Beyer (Ed.): Norges Litteraturhitorie . 8 volumes. Oslo 1995, volume 4, p. 598
14. ↑ Helge Krog: Meninger om Bøker og forfattere. Quoted from Bjarne Fidjestøl u. a. (Ed.): Norsk litteratur i tusen år. Oslo 1994, p. 420
15. ↑ Leif Longum: Nasjonal konsolidering og nye signaler, 1905–1945. In: Bjarne Fidjestøl u. a. (Ed.): Norsk litteratur i tusen år. Oslo 1994, pp. 390-524, here: p. 420.
16. ↑ Bjarte Birkeland: Herman Wildenvey. In: Edvard Beyer (Ed.): Norges Litteraturhitorie . 8 volumes. Oslo 1995, volume 4, p. 604.
17. ↑ Quoted from Bjarte Birkeland: Herman Wildenvey. In: Edvard Beyer (Ed.): Norges Litteraturhitorie . 8 volumes. Oslo 1995, volume 4, p. 605
18. ↑ Harald and Edvard Beyer: Norsk literaturhistorie . 5th edition. Oslo 1996, p. 320.
19. ↑ See AH Winsnes: Norges litteratur fra 1880-årene til første verdenskrig. In: Francis Bull, Fredrik Paasche u. a. (Ed.): Norges literature history. Femte bind. Oslo 1961, p. 600 f.
20. ↑ Bjarte Birkeland: Herman Wildenvey. In: Edvard Beyer (Ed.): Norges Litteraturhitorie . 8 volumes. Oslo 1995, Volume 4, pp. 609 f.
21. ↑ Knut Hamsun: Ossietzky. In: Aftenposten , November 22, 1935. - See Willy Brandt : The Nobel Prize Campaign for Carl von Ossietzky. Oldenburg 1988. Oldenburg University Speeches, No. 20; uni-oldenburg.de (PDF).
22. ↑ AH Winsnes: Norges literature from 1880-årene til første verdenskrig. In: Francis Bull, Fredrik Paasche u. a. (Ed.): Norges literature history. Femte bind. Oslo 1961, p. 603 f.
23. ↑ See Rolf Nyboe Nettum: Student med fangenummer 39337 , Active Fredsreiser. Accessed April 1, 2013.
24. ↑ Harald and Edvard Beyer: Norsk literaturhistorie . 5th edition. Oslo 1996, p. 322.

literature

• Kristoffer Haave: Herman Wildenvey. Poets, artists. Oslo 1952.
• Tom Lotherington: Herman Wildenvey - under det skjønnes skjønne fan. In: Kjell Heggelund u. a. (Ed.): Forfatternes literaturhistorie. 4 Vols. Vol. 3: Fra Herman Wildenvey til Tarjei Vesaas. Oslo 1981, pp. 7-16.
• Lars Roar Langslet et al. a .: Herman Wildenvey ... en sti fra Portaas til Parnossos. En essaysamling. Oslo 1987.
• Tom Lotherington: Wildenvey - et dikterliv. Oslo 1993.

Web links

Commons : Herman Wildenvey  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

• Tom Lotherington: Herman Wildeney . In: Store Norske Leksikon. Retrieved April 1, 2013.
• Wildenvey Society website (Norwegian, English)
• Portåsen Foundation website (Norwegian)