Essays on Scandinavian Literature - Hjalmar Hjorth Boyesen (best books to read non fiction txt) 📗

of seventeen Tegnér entered the University of Lund, accompanied by three young Myhrmans, whose father had generously promised to share with Assessor Branting the expenses of his academic education. His playmate, familiarly called Achilles, had to share his room, and thus it came to pass that Hector and his deadly foe became bedfellows. In fact the bed in question, being intended for but one, afforded the scantiest possible accommodations for two, and often threatened to collapse under their united weight. Aching in every joint from the discomfort of their cramped position, they would then get up and spend the remainder of the night in playing chess.

At the University Tegnér soon made his mark, and two years later took his degree of _Magister Artium_ with great distinction, being, according to the extraordinary custom of the country, laurel-crowned in the cathedral as the first of twenty-four candidates. The Swede loves pomp and ceremonious display, and rarely misses an opportunity for a fine stage effect. I do not mean to insinuate, of course, that Esaias Tegnér was unworthy of the honor which was conferred upon him; but it seems a terrible cheapening of the laurel to place it annually upon the brows of a herd of deedless striplings, standing upon the threshold of their careers. Tegnér was but nineteen years of age when the Muse, contrary to her habit, gave him the crown without the dust, generously rewarding him in advance of performance. But he came very near forfeiting the fruits of all his fair fame by participating in a hostile demonstration in front of the house of the University's rector, who was justly unpopular. His manly bearing, however, and the friendship of several of the professors saved him from the _consilium abeundi cum infamia_, with which he was threatened. Instead of that he was appointed _docent_ in æsthetics, Secretary to the Faculty of Philosophy, and Assistant University Librarian. His summer vacations he spent at Rämen with the Myhrmans. His playmate, Miss Anna, was now sixteen years of age, and had undergone that miraculous transformation, which never loses its delightful mystery, from childhood into young womanhood. He went away one day and bade good-by to an awkward kangaroo-like girl in short skirts, and returned in a few months to greet a lovely, blushingly dignified young lady, who probably avowed no more her fondness for him with the same frank heedlessness as of old. But she would have been more than woman if she could have resisted the wooing of the beautiful youth upon whom nature had showered so many rare gifts. A stone has been found up in the woods above Rämen which yet shows under its coating of moss the initials of E. T. and A. M. It requires but little imagination to fill out the story of the brief and happy courtship; and two cantos in "Frithjof's Saga" ("Frithof's Wooing" and "Frithjof's Happiness") supply an abundance of hints which have a charmingly autobiographical tinge:


"He sat by her side and pressed her soft hand,
And he felt a fond pressure, responsive and bland,
Whilst his love-dreaming gaze
Was returned as the sun's in the moon's placid rays.

"They spoke of days bygone, so gladsome and gay,
When the dew was yet fresh on life's new-trodden way;
For on memory's page
Youth traces its roses; its briers old age.

"She brought him a greeting from dale and from wood,
From the bark-graven runes and the brook's silver flood;
From the dome-crownèd cave
Where oaks bravely stream o'er a warrior's grave."[27]

[27] Strong's translation.


But here, happily, Tegnér's life ceased to supply material for that of his hero. For Anna Myhrman, instead of pledging her troth to a high-born, elderly gentleman, like King Ring, married the young University instructor, Esaias Tegnér; and when her bridal wreath of myrtle failed to arrive from the city, she twined a wreath of wild heather instead; and very lovely she looked on her wedding-day with the modest heather blossoms peeping forth from under her dark locks.

His insecure position in life, as one dependent upon the bounty of friends, had hitherto oppressed Tegnér, and at times made him moody and despondent. He had felt impelled, in justice to himself and to satisfy the expectations of his patrons, to apply himself to his studies with a perseverance and industry which came near undermining his health. He looked during his student days overworked, and if nature had endowed him with a less magnificent physique he would, no doubt, have succumbed to the strain of this perpetual over-exertion. But after his marriage a happy change came over him. The joyous substratum of his nature (what he himself called his pagan self) broke through its sombre integuments and asserted itself. No sooner had he taken his place among the teachers of the University than his clear and weighty personality commanded admiration and respect. In social intercourse his ready wit and cheerful conviviality made him a general favorite. His talk, without being in the least forced, was full of surprises; and there was a charm, in the redundant vigor and virility that seemed to radiate from him. But it may as well be admitted that he began at this time to show what may euphemistically be styled his paganism, in the relish which he evinced for jests of doubtful propriety. He was indeed as far as possible from being a prude; many years later, when he was a bishop and a great ecclesiastical dignitary, he wrote to his friend the poet Franzén:

"I thank God that I can yet, at times, be merry and give vent to my
mirth in prose and verse. I don't scruple to make a good joke even
though its subject be the bridal bed. All prudery--and frequently
the clerical dignity is, in social intercourse, nothing else--I
detest and despise."

His inability to restrain his wit in this particular direction has done some injury to his memory. Not that his fancy had any taint of uncleanness. It was open and cheerful as the sunlight; and as the sunlight played brightly over all things without fastidious discrimination. There was a rich, and healthy humanity about him which manifested itself in an impartial, all-embracing delight in the glow and color of mere sensuous existence. There has scarcely ever been a great poet (Dante perhaps excepted) who has not had his share of this pagan joy in nudity. Goethe's "Roman Elegies" are undisguisedly Anacreontic, and the most spiritual of modern poets, Robert Browning, is as deep and varied and bountiful in the expression he gives to life in its sensuous phases as in its highest ascetic transports.

Do not imagine, then, that I am apologizing for Tegnér, I am merely trying to account for him. From his Homer, whom he loved above all other poets, he had in a measure derived that artistic paganism which perceptibly colored his personality. There was nothing of the scholarly prig or pedant about him. In his lectures he gave himself, his own view of life, and his own interpretation of his authors. And it was because of the greatness of the man, the unhackneyed vigor of his speech, and the power of his intellect that the students flocked to his lecture-hall and listened with enthusiasm to his teaching.

I am not by any means sure, however, that much of his popularity was also due to what, at this stage of his career, may without disrespect be called his immaturity. That wholesome robustness in his acceptance of life which finds utterance in his early songs must have established a quick bond of sympathy between him and his youthful hearers. The instincts of the predatory man were yet strong in him. The tribal feeling which we call patriotism, the juvenile defiance which carries a chip on its shoulder as a challenge to the world, the boastful self-assertion which is always ridiculous in every nation but our own--impart a splendid martial resonance to his first notable poem, "War-Song for the Scanian Reserves" (1808). There was a charming, frank ferocity in this patriotic bugle-blast which found an echo in every Swedish heart. The rapid dactylic metres, with the captivating rhymes, alternating with the more contemplative trochees, were admirably adapted for conveying the ebullient indignation and wrath which hurls its gauntlet into the face of fate itself,[28] checked, as it were, and cooled by soberer reflection and retrospective regret. It is the sorrow for the yet recent loss of Finland which inspires the elegiac tones in Tegnér's war-song; and it is his own ardent, youthful spirit, his own deep and sincere love of country, which awakes the martial melody with the throbbing of the drum and the rousing alarum of trumpets. What can be more delightfully--shall I say juvenile--than this reference to the numerical superiority of the Muscovites:


"Many, are they? Well, then, of the many
Sweden shall drink the red blood and be free!
Many? We count not the warriors' numbers
Only the fallen shall numbered be."

[28]

"Vi Kaste var handske
Mot ödet sjelf."


It is with no desire to disparage Tegnér that I say that this strain, which is that of all his early war-songs, is extremely becoming to him. It is not a question of the legitimacy of the sentiment, but of the fulness and felicity of its expression. As long as we have wars we must have martial bards, and with the exception of the German, Theodor Körner, I know none who can bear comparison with Tegnér. English literature can certainly boast no war-poem which would not be drowned in the mighty music of Tegnér's "Svea," "The Scanian Reserves," and that magnificent, dithyrambic declamation, "King Charles, the Young Hero." Tennyson's "Charge of the Light Brigade" is technically a finer poem than anything Tegnér has written, but it lacks the deep virile bass, the tremendous volume of breath and voice, and the captivating martial lilt which makes the heart beat willy nilly to the rhythm of the verse.

The popularity which Tegnér gained by "The Scanian Reserves" was the immediate cause of his appointment to a professorship at the University of Lund, and his next notable poem, "Svea," which won him the great prize of the Swedish Academy, raised him to a height of fame which naturally led to further promotion. According to the curious custom of Sweden, a professor may, even though he has never studied theology, take orders and accept the charge of a parish. He is regarded as being, by dint of his learning, in the regular line of clerical promotion; and the elevation from a professorship (though it be not a theological one) into a bishopric is no infrequent occurrence. There was therefore nothing anomalous in Tegnér's appointment (February, 1812) as pastor of Stäfvie and Lackalänge, and his subsequent promotion (February, 1824) to the bishopric of Wexiö. His pastorate he was permitted to combine with his professorship of Greek, to which he was simultaneously transferred from that of æsthetics, and the office was chiefly valuable to him on account of the addition which it procured him to his income. The nearness of his parish to Lund enabled him to preach in the country on Sundays as regularly as he lectured in the city on week-days. His other pastoral duties he could not very well discharge _in absentia_, and they probably remained in a measure undischarged. He had not sought the parish; it was the parish which had sought him; and he exerted himself to the utmost to fill the less congenial office as conscientiously as he did his academic chair.