work itself out of this transitional condition and to become conscious of the fact that there are higher aims and better ways by which to glorify one's country than by bestowing exaggerated praise even on its advantages. About this time Wergeland and Welhaven appeared as the representatives of the two important tendencies, from the collision of which the new literature was to proceed.[1]
Henrik Wergeland was born in 1808. His father Nicolai Wergeland was a member of the constitutional convention, which assembled at Eidsvold, and he made an extraordinary sensation by his elequence which frequently soared to giddy heights, and by his unbridled, reckless enthusiasm for freedom. His intense patriotism found expression in various works, among which may be mentioned his pamphlet "Danmarks politiske Forbrydelser imod Norge," which, as indicated by the title, showed no mercy to Denmark. In the year 1817 Nicolai Wergeland became pastor at Eidsvold and here "on the sacred soil of Norwegian freedom" the lad Henrik grew up resembling his father in many respects and adopting his ideals, which were freedom, Norwegian sentiment, and reason. His special study was theology, but before he had completed his theological course, he wrote a few satirical farces under the signature "Siful Sifadda," a pseudonym which he afterward used when, as was frequently the case, he wished to vent his wrath in this kind of poetical compositions. He also published several exceedingly bombastic lyric poems, chiefly unrhymed odes. In the year 1830 appeared his lyric, dramatic poem, "Skabelsen, Mennesket og Messias" (the Creation, Man and Messiah), a work of extraordinary length, though the author had produced it in about six months. It was a very obscure expression of the ideas that were fermenting in his mind, and at the same time it was a sort of glorification of the deism of the eighteenth century. It teemed with inelegant matter, but on the other hand it also
- ↑ H. Jæger: Literaturhistoriske Pennetegninger, Copenhagen, 1878. M. C. Hausens Noveller og Fortællinger, I-VIII, Christiania, 1855-1858.
