The translation aims to reproduce as exactly as possible the
verse-form, meter, and rhyme of the original. This has been
judged desirable because music has been composed for so many
of these songs and poems, and each of them is, as it were, one
with its musical setting. But such reproduction seems also, on the
whole, to be most faithful and satisfactory, when the translator is
not endowed with poetic genius equal to that of the author. The very
numerous double (dissyllabic) rhymes of the Norwegian are not easy
to render in English. Recourse to the English present participle has
been avoided as much as possible. If it still seems to be too
frequent, the translator asks some measure of indulgence in view of
the fact that the use here of the English present participle is
formally not so unlike that of the inflectional endings and of the
post-positive article Norwegian.
The purpose of the Notes is to assist the better understanding and
appreciation of the contents of the book, by furnishing the
necessary historical and biographical information. Of the persons
referred to it is essential to know their dates, life-work,
character, influence, and relation to Bj?rnson. The Notes have been
drawn from the accessible encyclopedias, biographical dictionaries,
bibliographies, and histories. The notes of Julius Elias to his
edition of German translations of Bj?rnson's poems made by various
writers and published in 1908 have been freely and gratefully used.
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