Knut Hamsun

Knut Hamsun
Knut Hamsun in July 1939, at the age of 79.
Born	Knud Pedersen (1859-08-04)August 4, 1859 Lom, Gudbrandsdalen, Norway
Died	February 19, 1952(1952-02-19) (aged 92) Grimstad, Nørholm, Norway
Occupation	Author, poet, dramatist, social critic
Nationality	Norwegian
Period	1877–1949
Literary movement	Neo-romanticism Neo-realism
Notable awards	Nobel Prize in Literature 1920
Spouses	Bergljot Göpfert (née Bech) (1898-1906) Marie Hamsun (1909-death)
Signature

Knut Hamsun (August 4, 1859 – February 19, 1952) was a Norwegian writer, who was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1920. Hamsun's work spans more than 70 years and shows variation with regard to the subject, perspective and environment. He published more than 20 novels, a collection of poetry, some short stories and plays, a travelogue, and some essays.

The young Hamsun objected to realism and naturalism. He argued that the main object of modernist literature should be the intricacies of the human mind, that writers should describe the "whisper of blood, and the pleading of bone marrow".^[1] Hamsun is considered the "leader of the Neo-Romantic revolt at the turn of the 20th century", with works such as Hunger (1890), Mysteries (1892), Pan (1894), and Victoria (1898).^[2] His later works—in particular his "Nordland novels"—were influenced by the Norwegian new realism, portraying everyday life in rural Norway and often employing local dialect, irony, and humour.^[3]

Hamsun is considered to be "one of the most influential and innovative literary stylists of the past hundred years" (ca. 1890–1990).^[4] He pioneered psychological literature with techniques of stream of consciousness and interior monologue, and influenced authors such as Thomas Mann, Franz Kafka, Maxim Gorky, Stefan Zweig, Henry Miller, Hermann Hesse, and Ernest Hemingway.^[5] Isaac Bashevis Singer called Hamsun "the father of the modern school of literature in his every aspect—his subjectiveness, his fragmentariness, his use of flashbacks, his lyricism. The whole modern school of fiction in the twentieth century stems from Hamsun".^[6]

On August 4, 2009, the Knut Hamsun Centre was opened in Hamarøy.^[7] Since 1916, several of Hamsun's works have been adapted into motion pictures.

Biography[edit]

Hamsun in 1890, the year he published his first major work, Hunger.

Early life[edit]

Knut Hamsun was born as Knud Pedersen in Lom in the Gudbrandsdal valley of Norway.^[8] He was the fourth son (of seven children) of Tora Olsdatter and Peder Pedersen. When he was three, the family moved to Hamsund, Hamarøy in Nordland.^[9] They were poor and an uncle had invited them to farm his land for him.

At nine Knut was separated from his family and lived with his uncle Hans Olsen, who needed help with the post office he ran. Olsen used to beat and starve his nephew, and Hamsun later stated that his chronic nervous difficulties were due to the way his uncle treated him.

In 1874 he finally escaped back to Lom; for the next five years he did any job for money; he was a store clerk, peddler, shoemaker's apprentice, sheriff's assistant, and an elementary-school teacher.^[10]

At 17 he became a ropemaker's apprentice; at about the same time he started to write. He asked businessman Erasmus Zahl to give him significant monetary support, and Zahl agreed. Hamsun later used Zahl as a model for the character Mack appearing in his novels Pan (1894), Dreamers (1904), and Benoni and Rosa (1908).^[11]

He spent several years in America, traveling and working at various jobs, and published his impressions under the title Fra det moderne Amerikas Aandsliv (1889).

Early Literary career[edit]

Working all those odd jobs paid off^[12], and he published his first book: Den Gaadefulde: En Kjærlighedshistorie fra Nordland (The Enigmatic Man: A Love Story from Northern Norway, 1877). It was inspired from the experiences and struggles he endured from his jobs.

In his second novel Bjørger (1878), he attempted to imitate Bjørnstjerne Bjørnson's writing style of the Icelandic saga narrative. The melodramatic story follows a poet Bjørger and his love for Laura. This book was published under the pseudonym Knud Pedersen Hamsund. This book later served as the basis for Victoria: En Kærligheds Historie (1898; translated as Victoria: A Love Story, 1923).^[13]

Major Works[edit]

Hamsun first received wide acclaim with his 1890 novel Hunger (Sult). The semiautobiographical work described a young writer's descent into near madness as a result of hunger and poverty in the Norwegian capital of Kristiania (modern name Oslo). To many, the novel presages the writings of Franz Kafka and other twentieth-century novelists with its internal monologue and bizarre logic.

A theme to which Hamsun often returned is that of the perpetual wanderer, an itinerant stranger (often the narrator) who shows up and insinuates himself into the life of small rural communities. This wanderer theme is central to the novels Mysteries, Pan, Under the Autumn Star, The Last Joy, Vagabonds, Rosa, and others.

Hamsun’s prose often contains rapturous depictions of the natural world, with intimate reflections on the Norwegian woodlands and coastline. For this reason, he has been linked with the spiritual movement known as pantheism ("There is no God," he once wrote. "Only gods."). Hamsun saw mankind and nature united in a strong, sometimes mystical bond. This connection between the characters and their natural environment is exemplified in the novels Pan, A Wanderer Plays on Muted Strings, and the epic Growth of the Soil, "his monumental work" credited with securing him the Nobel Prize in literature in 1920.^[14]

World War II, arrest and trial[edit]

During World War II, Hamsun put his support behind the German war effort. He courted and met with high-ranking Nazi officers, including Adolf Hitler. Nazi Minister of Propaganda Joseph Goebbels wrote a long and enthusiastic diary entry concerning a private meeting with Hamsun; according to Goebbels Hamsun's "faith in German victory is unshakable".^[15] In 1940 Hamsun wrote that "the Germans are fighting for us".^[16] After Hitler's death, he published a short obituary in which he described him as "a warrior for mankind" and "a preacher of the gospel of justice for all nations."

After the war, he was detained by police on June 14, 1945, for the commission of acts of treason, and was committed to a hospital in Grimstad (Grimstad sykehus) "due to his advanced age", according to Einar Kringlen (a professor and medical doctor).^[17] In 1947 he was tried in Grimstad, and fined.^[18] Norway's supreme court reduced the fine from 575,000 to 325,000 Norwegian kroner.^[19]

After the war, Hamsun's views on the Germans during the war was a serious grief for the Norwegians, and they tried to separate their world-famous writer from his Nazi beliefs. At the trial Hamsun had pleaded ignorance. Deeper explanations involve his contradictory personality, his distaste for the hoi polloi, his inferiority complex, a profound distress at the spread of indiscipline, antipathy toward the interwar democracy, and especially his anglophobia.^[20]

Death[edit]

Knut Hamsun died on February 19, 1952, aged 92, in Grimstad. His ashes are buried in the garden of his home at Nørholm.^[21]

Legacy[edit]

Thomas Mann described him as a "descendant of Fyodor Dostoyevsky and Friedrich Nietzsche." Arthur Koestler was a fan of his love stories. H. G. Wells praised Markens Grøde (1917) for which Hamsun was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature. Isaac Bashevis Singer was a fan of his modern subjectivism, use of flashbacks, his use of fragmentation, and his lyricism.^[13] A character in Charles Bukowski's book Women referred to him as the greatest writer to have ever lived.^[22]

A fifteen-volume edition of Hamsun's complete works was published in 1954. In 2009, to mark the 150-year anniversary of his birth, a new 27-volume edition of his complete works was published, including short stories, poetry, plays, and articles not included in the 1954 edition. For this new edition, all of Hamsun's works underwent slight linguistic modifications in order to make them more accessible to contemporary Norwegian readers.^[23] Fresh English translations of two of his major works, Growth of the Soil and Pan, were published in 1998.

Hamsun’s works remain popular. In 2009, a Norwegian biographer stated, "We can’t help loving him, though we have hated him all these years ... That’s our Hamsun trauma. He’s a ghost that won’t stay in the grave."^[24]

Writing techniques[edit]

Along with August Strindberg, Henrik Ibsen, and Sigrid Undset, Hamsun formed a quartet of Scandinavian authors who became internationally known for their works. Hamsun pioneered psychological literature with techniques of stream of consciousness and interior monologue, as found in material by, for example, Joyce, Proust, Mansfield and Woolf.

Personal life[edit]

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Family portrait on the stairs of "Villa Havgløtt". from left to right: Tore Hamsun, Marie Hamsun, Arild Hamsun, Knut Hamsun and Ellinor Hamsun.

In 1898, Hamsun married Bergljot Göpfert (née Bech), who bore daughter Victoria, but the marriage ended in 1906. Hamsun then married Marie Andersen (1881-1969) in 1909 and she was his companion until the end of his life. They had four children: sons Tore and Arild and daughters Elinor and Cecilia.

Marie wrote about her life with Hamsun in two memoirs. She was a promising actress when she met Hamsun but ended her career and traveled with him to Hamarøy. They bought a farm, the idea being "to earn their living as farmers, with his writing providing some additional income".

After a few years they decided to move south, to Larvik. In 1918 they bought Nørholm, an old, somewhat dilapidated manor house between Lillesand and Grimstad. The main residence was restored and redecorated. Here Hamsun could occupy himself with writing undisturbed, although he often travelled to write in other cities and places (preferably in spartan housing).

Political sympathies[edit]

In younger years, Hamsun had leanings of an anti-egalitarian, racist bent. In The Cultural Life of Modern America (1889), he expressed his fear of miscegenation: "The Negros are and will remain Negros, a nascent human form from the tropics, rudimentary organs on the body of white society. Instead of founding an intellectual elite, America has established a mulatto studfarm."^[25]

Following the Second Boer War, he adopted increasingly conservative views. He also came to be known as a prominent advocate of Germany and German culture, as well as a rhetorical opponent of British imperialism and the Soviet Union. During both the World War I and World War II, he publicly expressed his sympathy for Germany.

His sympathies were heavily influenced by the impact of the Boer War, seen by Hamsun as British oppression of a small people, as well as by his dislike of the English and distaste for the US. During the 1930s, most of the Norwegian right-wing newspapers and political parties were sympathetic in various degrees to fascist regimes in Europe, and Hamsun came to be a prominent advocate of such views. During WWII, he continued to express his support for Germany, and his public statements led to controversy; in particular, in the immediate aftermath of the war. When World War II began, he was 80 years old, almost deaf, and his main source of information was the conservative newspaper Aftenposten, which had been sympathetic to Fascist Italy and Nazi Germany from the beginning. He suffered two intracranial hemorrhages during the war.

Hamsun wrote several newspaper articles in the course of the war, including his notorious 1940 assertion that "the Germans are fighting for us, and now are crushing England's tyranny over us and all neutrals".^[16] In 1943, he sent Germany’s minister of propaganda Joseph Goebbels his Nobel Prize medal as a gift. His biographer Thorkild Hansen interpreted this as part of the strategy to get an audience with Hitler.^[26] Hamsun was eventually invited to meet with Hitler; during the meeting, he complained about the German civilian administrator in Norway, Josef Terboven, and asked that imprisoned Norwegian citizens be released, enraging Hitler.^[27] Otto Dietrich describes the meeting in his memoirs as the only time that another person was able to get a word in edgeways with Hitler. He attributes the cause to Hamsun's deafness. Regardless, Dietrich notes that it took Hitler three days to get over his anger.^[28] Hamsun also on other occasions helped Norwegians who had been imprisoned for resistance activities and tried to influence German policies in Norway.^[29]

Nevertheless, a week after Hitler's death, Hamsun wrote a eulogy for him, saying “He was a warrior, a warrior for mankind, and a prophet of the gospel of justice for all nations.”^[24] Following the end of the war, angry crowds burned his books in public in major Norwegian cities and Hamsun was confined for several months in a psychiatric hospital.

Hamsun was forced to undergo a psychiatric examination, which concluded that he had "permanently impaired mental faculties," and on that basis the charges of treason were dropped. Instead, a civil liability case was raised against him, and in 1948 he had to pay a ruinous sum to the Norwegian government of 325,000 kroner ($65,000 or £16,250 at that time) for his alleged membership in Nasjonal Samling and for the moral support he gave to the Germans, but was cleared of any direct Nazi affiliation. Whether he was a member of Nasjonal Samling or not and whether his mental abilities were impaired is a much debated issue even today. Hamsun stated he was never a member of any political party.^{[citation needed]} He wrote his last book Paa giengrodde Stier (On Overgrown Paths) in 1949, a book many take as evidence of his functioning mental capabilities.^{[citation needed]} In it, he harshly criticizes the psychiatrists and the judges and, in his own words, proves that he is not mentally ill.

The Danish author Thorkild Hansen investigated the trial and wrote the book The Hamsun Trial (1978), which created a storm in Norway. Among other things Hansen stated: "If you want to meet idiots, go to Norway," as he felt that such treatment of the old Nobel Prize-winning author was outrageous. In 1996 the Swedish director Jan Troell based the movie Hamsun on Hansen's book. In Hamsun, the Swedish actor Max von Sydow plays Knut Hamsun; his wife, Marie, is played by the Danish actress Ghita Nørby.

Bibliography[edit]

• 1877 Den Gaadefulde. En kjærlighedshistorie fra Nordland (Published as Knud Pedersen)
• 1878 Et Gjensyn (Published as Knud Pedersen Hamsund)
• 1878 Bjørger (Published as Knud Pedersen Hamsund)
• 1889 Lars Oftedal. Udkast (11 articles, previously printed in Dagbladet)
• 1889 Fra det moderne Amerikas Aandsliv (The Spiritual Life of Modern America)
• 1890 Sult (Hunger)
• 1892 Mysterier (Mysteries)
• 1893 Redaktør Lynge
• 1893 Ny Jord (Shallow Soil)
• 1894 Pan (Pan)
• 1895 Ved Rigets Port (At the Gate of the Kingdom)
• 1896 Livets Spil (The Game of Life)
• 1897 Siesta
• 1898 Aftenrøde. Slutningspil
• 1898 Victoria. En kjærlighedshistorie (Victoria)
• 1902 Munken Vendt. Brigantines saga I
• 1903 I Æventyrland. Oplevet og drømt i Kaukasien (In Wonderland)
• 1903 Dronning Tamara, play
• 1903 Kratskog
• 1904 Det vilde Kor, poetry (The Wild Choir)
• 1904 Sværmere (Mothwise, 1921), (Dreamers)
• 1905 Stridende Liv. Skildringer fra Vesten og Østen
• 1906 Under Høststjærnen. En Vandrers Fortælling (Under the Autumn Star)
• 1908 Benoni Benoni
• 1908 Rosa: Af Student Parelius' Papirer (Rosa)
• 1909 En Vandrer spiller med Sordin (A Wanderer Plays on Muted Strings)
• 1909 En Vandrer spiller med Sordin (Wanderers)
• 1910 Livet i Vold, play (In the Grip of Life)
• 1912 Den sidste Glæde (The Last Joy; also known as Look Back in Happiness)
• 1913 Børn av Tiden (Children of the Age)
• 1915 Segelfoss By 1 (Volume 1) (Segelfoss Town)
• 1915 Segelfoss By 2 (Volume 2) (Segelfoss Town
• 1917 Markens Grøde 1 (Growth of the Soil)
• 1917 Markens Grøde 2
• 1918 Sproget i Fare
• 1920 Konerne ved Vandposten I (The Women at the Pump)
• 1920 Konerne ved Vandposten II
• 1923 Siste Kapitel I (Volume 1) (The Last Chapter)
• 1923 Siste Kapitel II (Volume 2) (The Last Chapter)
• 1927 Landstrykere I (Wayfarers)
• 1927 Landstrykere II
• 1930 August I (Volume 1) (August)
• 1930 August II (Volume 2) (August)
• 1933 Men Livet lever I (Volume 1) (The Road Leads On)
• 1933 Men Livet lever II (Volume 2) (The Road Leads On)
• 1936 Ringen sluttet (The Ring is Closed)
• 1949 Paa gjengrodde Stier (On Overgrown Paths)

Nobel Prize-winning writer Isaac Bashevis Singer translated some of his works.

Cinematization of literary works[edit]

Hamsun's works have been the basis of 25 films and television mini-series adaptations, starting in 1916.^[30]

The book Mysteries was the basis of a 1978 film of the same name (by the Dutch film company Sigma Pictures),^[31] directed by Paul de Lussanet, starring Sylvia Kristel, Rutger Hauer, Andrea Ferreol and Rita Tushingham.

Landstrykere (Wayfarers) is a Norwegian film from 1990 directed by Ola Solum.

The Telegraphist is a Norwegian movie from 1993 directed by Erik Gustavson. It is based on the novel Dreamers (Sværmere, also published in English as Mothwise).

Pan has been the basis of four films between 1922 and 1995. The latest adaptation, the Danish film of the same name, was directed by Henning Carlsen, who also directed the Danish, Norwegian and Swedish coproduction of the 1966 film Sult from Hamsun's novel of the same name.

Remodernist filmmaker Jesse Richards has announced he is in preparations to direct an adaptation of Hamsun's short story The Call of Life.^[32]

Cinematized biography[edit]

A biopic entitled Hamsun was released in 1996, directed by Jan Troell, starring Max von Sydow as Hamsun.

References[edit]

Further reading[edit]

• Ferguson, Robert. 1987. Enigma: The Life of Knut Hamsun. Farrar, Straus and Giroux.
• Haugan, Jørgen. 2004. The Fall of the Sun God. Knut Hamsun - a Literary Biography Oslo: Aschehoug.
• Humpal, Martin. 1999. The Roots of Modernist Narrative: Knut Hamsun's Novels Hunger, Mysteries and Pan. International Specialized Book Services.
• Kolloen, Ingar Sletten. 2009. Knut Hamsun: Dreamer and Dissident . Yale University Press. ISBN 978-0-300-12356-2
• Larsen, Hanna Astrup. 1922. Knut Hamsun Alfred A. Knopf.
• Næss, Harald (2007), Nobel Prize Laureates in Literature, Part 2, Farmington Hills, Michigan: Gale, ISBN 978-0-7876-8148-7 
• Shaer, Matthew. 2009. Tackling Knut Hamsun. Review of Kollen Sletten, Dreamer and dissenter and Žagar, The dark side of literary brilliance. In Los Angeles Times, 25 October 2009.
• D'Urance, Michel. 2007. Hamsun. Editions Pardès, Paris, 128 p.
• Žagar, Monika. 2009. The dark side of literary brilliance. University of Washington Press.

External links[edit]

Wikiquote has quotations related to: Knut Hamsun

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Knut Hamsun.

Wikisource has original works written by or about: Knut Hamsun

Biographical[edit]

• National Library of Norway Commemoration Page
• Biography, from the Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs
• Hamsun bibliography 1879–2009 : literature on Knut Hamsun (National Library of Norway)
• Knut Hamsun, at Nobel Prize website
• Kristofer Janson and Knut Hamsun at the National Library of Norway
• Knut Hamsun's America at the Norwegian-American Historical Association
• Knut Hamsun's Early Years in the Northwest in Minnesota History Magazine
• Petri Liukkonen. "Knut Hamsun". Books and Writers
• "Knut Hamsun: Dreamer and Dissenter", bio and review at The New Republic, September 2010
• Knut Hamsun Online, fan-supported website

Works[edit]

• Hamsun bibliography 1879–2009 published by the National Library of Norway and the University library of Tromsø
• Works by Knut Hamsun at Project Gutenberg
• Works by or about Knut Hamsun at Internet Archive
• Works by Knut Hamsun at LibriVox (public domain audiobooks)
• Works by Knut Hamsun at Project Gutenberg (plain text and HTML)
• Det Vilde Kor 1904 at the Internet Archive (Hamsun's only collection of verse)

Other[edit]

• Wood, James, Addicted to Unpredictability, an essay. Retrieved 8 October 2006.
• Chelsea on the Edge: The Adventures of an American Theater, Davi Napoleon. Includes discussion of Ice Age, a controversial production in which Hamson is the protagonist. Iowa State University Press. ISBN 0-8138-1713-7, 1991.
• Norwegian Nobel Laureate, Once Shunned, Is Now Celebrated, New York Times. 27 February 2009
• Newspaper clippings about Knut Hamsun in the 20th Century Press Archives of the German National Library of Economics (ZBW)