Wergeland knew
nothing of the Danish tradition of his day, which he treated with
violent and bitter contempt. Welhaven, who had moved in the circle of
the friends of Rahbek, instinctively referred every literary problem to
the tribunal of Danish taste. He saw that with the enthusiasm with which
the poetry of Wergeland was received in Norway was connected a suspicion
of mental discipline, a growing worship of the peasant and a hatred and
scorn of Denmark, with all of which he had no sympathy. He thought the
time had come for better things; that the national temper ought to be
mollified with the improved economic situation of the country; that the
students, who were taking a more and more prominent place, ought to be
on the side of the angels. It was not unnatural that Welhaven should
look upon the corybantic music of Wergeland as the source and origin of
an evil of which it was really the symptom; he gathered his powers
together to crush it, and he published a thunderbolt of sonnets.
The English reader, familiar with the powerlessness of even the best
verse to make any impression upon Anglo-Saxon opinion, may smile to
think of a great moral and ethical attack conducted with no better
weapon than a paper of sonnets.
Pages:
35
36
37
38
39
40
41
42
43
44
45
46
47
48
49
50
51
52
53
54
55
56
57
58
59