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". 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). 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. Hamsun published only one poetry collection, The Wild Choir, which has been set to music by several composers.
Hamsun held strong Anglophobic views, and openly supported Adolf Hitler and Nazi Germany: he donated his Nobel Prize medal to Joseph Goebbels, propaganda Minister for the Third Reich and met Hitler during the German occupation of Norway. Due to his professed support for the occupation of Norway and the Quisling regime, he was charged with treason after the war. Due to alleged psychological problems and issues relating to old age, he was not convicted, but in 1948 he was heavily fined. Hamsun's last book, On Overgrown Paths, authored in semi-imprisonment in Landvik, concerned his postwar treatment and his rebuttal to accusations of mental ineptness.
Biography
Hamsun in 1890, the year he published his first major work, Hunger
Early life
Knut Hamsun was born as Knud Pedersen in 1859 in Lom Municipality in the Gudbrandsdalen valley, Norway. He was the fourth son among the seven children of Tora Olsdatter and Peder Pedersen. When he was three, the family moved to Hamsund in Hamarøy Municipality in Nordland county. 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 how his uncle treated him.
In 1874 he finally escaped back to Lom. For the next five years he did any job for money: shop assistant, peddler, shoemaker's apprentice, sheriff's assistant, and an elementary-school teacher.
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 monetary support, and he agreed. Hamsun later used Zahl as a model for the character Mack appearing in his novels Pan (1894), Dreamers (1904), Benoni (1908) and Rosa (1908).
He spent several years in America, traveling and working at various jobs, and published in 1889 his impressions under the title Fra det moderne Amerikas Aandsliv ("From the Spiritual Life of Modern America").
In 1898, Hamsun married Bergljot Bech (later Göpfert), 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 Ellinor 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, planning "to earn their living as farmers, with his writing providing some additional income".
After a few years they moved south, to Larvik. In 1918 they bought Nørholm, an old, somewhat dilapidated manor house in Landvik Municipality, 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, preferring spartan housing.
Early literary career
After Edvard Munch, Knut Hamsun, 1896, photogravure, National Gallery of Art, Washington, Rosenwald Collection, 1951.10.360
In 1877, he published his first book: Den Gaadefulde: En Kjærlighedshistorie fra Nordland (The Enigmatic Man: A Love Story from Northern Norway). It was inspired by his odd job experiences and struggles. In his second novel Bjørger (1878), he attempted to imitate Bjørnstjerne Bjørnson's writing style. The melodramatic story follows a poet, Bjørger, and his love for Laura. This book was published under the pseudonym Knud Pedersen Hamsund. This book served as the basis for Hamsun's later novel Victoria: En Kærligheds Historie (1898; translated as Victoria: A Love Story, 1923).
As of 1898 Hamsun was among the contributors of Ringeren, a political and cultural magazine established by Sigurd Ibsen.
Major works
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 insinuates himself into the life of small rural communities. This 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 ("No one knows God," he once wrote, "man knows 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 Growth of the Soil, "his monumental work" credited with securing him the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1920.
World War II, arrest and trial
As early as 1918 during World War I, Hamsun's pro-German attitude had been noted and The Atlantic speculated that the cause may have been "a love of opposition to average opinion." During World War II, Hamsun supported 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". In 1940 Hamsun wrote that "the Germans are fighting for us".
On 13 June 1945, after the war, he was detained by police for treason, then committed to a hospital in Grimstad (Grimstad sykehus) "due to his advanced age", according to Einar Kringlen, a professor and medical doctor. In 1947 he was tried in Grimstad and fined. Norway's supreme court reduced the fine from 575,000 to 325,000 Norwegian kroner.
After the war, Norwegians were torn between aversion to Hamsun's Nazi sympathies and regard for his achievements and fame as a writer. At his trial Hamsun had pleaded ignorance. Other explanations have cited his contradictory personality, his distaste for hoi polloi, his inferiority complex, his distress at the spread of indiscipline, his dislike of Norway's interwar democracy, and especially his Anglophobia.
Scholar and translator Sverre Lyngstad explains that Hamsun had asserted in an 1890 article that for literature to accurately represent mental life, writers must explore:
"the mimosa-like sensitivities of the psyche and the secret stirrings in the remote parts of the mind, the incalculable welter of emotions, the random wanderings of thought and feeling, the uncharted, trackless journeys of heart and brain, the mysterious activities of the nerves, the whisper of the blood, the entreaty of the bones, all the unconscious life of the mind."
—Knut Hamsun in 1890
At the time of composing Mysteries (1892), Hamsun in essays and lectures was criticizing the state of Norwegian literature and promoting a new form of unpredictable psychological writing. Some of Hamsun's critical views received hostile reactions at the time, and he continued his political and cultural stance in dialog of the fictional character Nagel (who for example calls Ibsen's plays “dramatized wood pulp”), and used the book itself as an embodiment of his theory of literature. Hamsun had specifically criticized stereotypes of elder authors and called for characters of "changeable and divided mind" in whom "inconsistency is their fundamental trait."
Walter Benjamin wrote in 1929, "it is well known that the Germanic languages are particularly rich in heroes who are windbags, wastrels, and thieves, and who in general have gone to the dogs. Knut Hamsun, a master of such
characters, has recently been discovered and celebrated."
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."
Scholar Reinhard Friederich stated that Hamsun's late-life political attitudes caused discussion of his earlier literary reputation and influence to become reduced to shallow half-hearted mention.
Legacy
A fifteen-volume edition of Hamsun's complete works was published in 1954. In 2009, to mark the 150th 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 to make them more accessible to contemporary Norwegian readers. New English translations of two of his major works, Growth of the Soil and Pan, were published in 1998.
Hamsun's writings have been the subject of numerous books and journal articles. Some of these writings compare and contrast Hamsun's literary works with the political and cultural ideas expressed in his non-fiction.
Hamsun produced a voluminous correspondence during his lifetime. Norwegian scholar and Hamsun expert Harald Næss spent four decades tracking these letters down in both the United States and Europe, producing a collection of thousands of letters. He published a selection in various volumes between 1994 and 2000.
Racism and admiration for Hitler
From his youth onward, Hamsun espoused racist and anti-egalitarian beliefs. In The Cultural Life of Modern America (Fra det moderne Amerikas Aandsliv, 1889), he denounced miscegenation: "The Negros are and will remain Negros, a nascent human form the tropics, rudimentary organs on the body of white society. Instead of founding an intellectual elite, America has established a mulatto studfarm." Hamsun also wrote:
"[...] the nation’s blood was democratically mixed with that of the Negro, and intelligence sank rather than rose. Cohabitation with the blacks was foisted upon the people. Inhumanity stole them away from Africa where they belong, and democracy transformed them into civilized citizens against the entire order of nature. They have leaped over all the intermediate stages between voracious rat eater and Yankee. Now they are used as preachers, barbers, waiters, and sons-in-law."
—Knut Hamsun's racist statements in The Cultural Life of Modern America (1889)
Hamsun wrote several newspaper articles during World War II in support of Germany, including a notorious 1940 assertion that "the Germans are fighting for us, and now are crushing England's tyranny over us and all neutrals". In 1943, he sent Germany's minister of propagandaJoseph Goebbels his Nobel Prize medal as a gift. Its whereabouts since then are unknown. Hamsun's biographer Thorkild Hansen interpreted this as part of a strategy to get an audience with Hitler. Hamsun was eventually invited to meet with Hitler; during the meeting, Hamsun complained about the German civilian administrator in Norway, Josef Terboven and asked that imprisoned Norwegian citizens be released, enraging Hitler. 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 this to Hamsun's deafness. Regardless, Dietrich notes that it took Hitler three days to get over his anger. Hamsun also on other occasions helped Norwegians who had been imprisoned for resistance activities and tried to influence German policies in Norway. After a visit to Nazi Germany, a radio interviewer asked Hamsun if he met Hitler, and Hamsun replied "You know, I met so many people, I can't really remember." The reply prompted a debate in the Times Literary Supplement between scholars about the meaning.
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." Following the end of the war, angry crowds burned his books[citation needed] 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. A civil liability case was raised against him, and in 1948 he had to pay the ruinous sum of 325,000 kroner ($65,000 or £16,250 at that time) to the Norwegian government. Specifically, he was held responsible for a willingness to be "taken for" a member of Nasjonal Samling (NS), and for the (questionable) presence of his name on a registration form, but acquitted of other charges, while the court decided there was not enough evidence to demonstrate he was a member.:407. Hamsun denied that he was a member of NS or any political party, though he admitted to having been "Quisling's man" for years.:333
He wrote his last book Paa giengrodde Stier (On Overgrown Paths) in 1949. A publisher Harald Grieg, thought the book demonstrated that Hamsun's faculties were not impaired.:413 In it, Hamsun harshly criticizes the psychiatrists and the judges and, in his view, proves that he is not mentally ill.
Danish author Thorkild Hansen investigated the trial and wrote The Hamsun Trial (1978), which created a storm in Norway. Hansen viewed Hamsun's treatment as outrageous, writing, "If you want to meet idiots, go to Norway." In 1996, Swedish filmmaker Jan Troell based the movie Hamsun on Hansen's book. In Hamsun, Swedish actor Max von Sydow plays Knut Hamsun; his wife Marie is played by Danish actress Ghita Nørby.
Hamsun's works have been the basis of 25 films and television mini-series adaptations, starting in 1916.
1922 - Pan was the basis of a 1922 film, and three more adaptations later.
1966 film Hunger,starring Per Oscarsson, directed by Henning Carlsen. A Danish, Norwegian and Swedish coproduction. It is considered one of the best film adaptations of a Hamsun work.[citation needed]
↑Contemporary Authors Online. Farmington Hills, Michigan: Gale. 2009. ISBN978-0-7876-3995-2.
↑Citation: [...] dobbeltromanen Benoni og Rosa fra 1908. I skikkelse av oppkomlingen BenoniHartvigsen tegner Hamsun her for første gang et portrett av en allmuens mann i full skikkelse, med ironisk distanse, men også med betydelig sympati.
↑The Goebbels Diaries, 1942–1943, translated, edited, and introduced by Louis P. Lochner, 1948, pp. 303–304. Goebbels also claimed that "from childhood on he [Hamsun] has keenly disliked the English".
1234Lyngstad, Sverre (2001). Introduction. Mysteries. By Knut Hamsun. Translated by Sverre Lyngstad. Penguin Group.
↑Hamsun, Knut (1939). Francis Bull (ed.). "Fra det ubevidste Sjaeleliv". Artikler. Oslo.
↑Tore Hamsun, ed. (1960). ""Psykologisk literatur"". Paa Turnе́: Tre foredrag om litteratur. Oslo.
↑Reinhard H. Friederich (Winter 1976). "Hamsun's and Kafka's Mysteries". Comparative Literature. 28 (1). Duke University Press: 34–50. doi:10.2307/1770132. JSTOR1770132.
↑Benjamin, Walter (September 1929). "Robert Walser". Das Tagebuch (Essay). Translated by Rodney Livingstone.
↑Benjamin, Walter. Gesammelte Schriften, II. p.324–328. [Walser's] "Schneewittchen" [Snow White], one of the profoundest products of modern literature, and one which is enough on its own to explain why this seemingly most fanciful of all writers should have been a favorite author of the inexorable Franz Kafka
↑Reynolds, Susan (3 April 2024). "'The mysteries of the nerves in a starving body': Knut Hamsun and Dostoevsky". Translating Russian Literature in the Global Context. Cambridge, UK: Open Book Publishers. p.219–234. doi:10.11647/obp.0340.13. ISBN978-1-80064-983-5.
↑Wells, H. G. (1921). The Salvaging of Civilization. Cassell and Co. p.124.
↑Charles Bukowski, WOMEN, New York: Ecco Books, 2002. p.67
↑Johannessen, Oddbjørn (9 February 2017). "Harald S. Næss til minne". fvn.no (in Norwegian). Retrieved 25 April 2024.
↑Sjølyst-Jackson, Peter. Troubling legacies: migration, modernism and fascism in the case of Knut Hamsun. Continuum International Publishing Group. p.16.
↑Hamsun, Knut (1969). The Cultural Life of Modern America. Translated by Barbara Gordon Morgridge. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. p.144.
Sjølyst-Jackson, Peter. 2010. Troubling Legacies: Migration, Modernism and Fascism in the Case of Knut Hamsun. Continuum / Bloomsbury ISBN978-1-4411-3476-9
Larsen, Hanna Astrup. 1922. Knut Hamsun. Alfred A. Knopf.
Nergaard, Siri. 2004. La costruzione di una cultura: la letteratura norvegese in traduzione italiana. Guaraldi.
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.
