This is the first of Bjørnson’s many “bonde-novellen”, a coming-of-age story set within a peasant culture. The peasant tales of Steen Blicher (Danish), Berthold Auerbach (German), and Jeremias Gotthelf (Swiss) were already very popular, but Bjørnson’s work marked a radical break with traditional forms by his infusion of the saga spirit. Theodore Jorgenson described it as “an epoch-making work in Norwegian literature . . . prophetic of the rise of the novel” (278). Since boyhood, Bjørnson had believed that the characters of the sagas lived again among the
bonde, and he sought “to elevate our history through its greatest and most characteristically Norwegian men, and to draw pictures of our daily life” (
Gro-Tid, 20 May, 1861, p.246). His stark expression of human…
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Citation: Rees, Kathy. "Synnøve Solbakken". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 24 August 2017 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=38780, accessed 26 November 2024.]
