In his many-sidedness Bj?rnson was also in his time the first
skald of his people, almost equally endowed with genius as a
narrative, a dramatic, and a lyric poet; with talents scarcely
less remarkable as an orator, a theater-director, a journalistic
tribune of the people (his newspaper articles amounted, roughly
estimated, to ten thousand book-pages), a letter-writer, and a
conversationalist.
If, furthermore, we take into account also Bj?rnson's labors and
achievements in the domain of action more narrowly considered, it
is no wonder that his _Poems and Songs_ make only a small volume.
Examining the book more closely, we find that three-quarters of
its pages were written before the year 1875, so that the lyrical
output, here published, of the thirty-four years thereafter
amounts to but fifty pages. From the year 1874 on in Bj?rnson's
life the chieftain supplanted the skald, so far as lyrical
utterance was concerned. He was leading his nation in thought and
action on the fields of theology and religion, of politics, economics,
and social reform; he was tireless in making speeches, in writing
letters and newspaper articles; his poetic genius flowed out
copiously in the dramatic and epic channels of his numerous modern
plays, novels, and stories.
That soon after 1874 Bj?rnson passed through a crisis in his
personal thought and inner life was probably, in view of the
sufficient explanation suggested above, without influence in
lessening his production of short poems.
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