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NOTES 237
Page 63.
Fripa. This poem was first printed March 24, 1863, soon after the
death, at the age of twenty-two, of her whom it commemorates. She was
a younger sister of the leading Danish literary critic, Clemens Petersen,
born 1834. He became Bjérnson’s friend in 1856 and aided greatly
in opening the way for him in Denmark. Until 1868 Petersen had
much influence on public opinion. Soon after that he came to America,
and did not return to Copenhagen until 1904. He was a follower of
Heiberg, but more liberal.
Page 65.
BERGEN. Written in 1863 for a musical festival in which Bjérnson and
Ibsen took part. Bergen’s unusually favorable situation made it for a
long time Norway’s first city in commerce; it has only recently fallen
behind Christiania. It has ever had a large local fleet and great traffic in
its harbor. Founded about 1070 by King Olaf the Quiet, Bergen was very
important in the older history of the land, as the residence of the Kings,
until about 1350, when Hanseatic control began, continuing until
late in the sixteenth century. In the seventeenth century Bergen was
incomparably the first commercial city in the Danish-Norwegian mon-
archy; in the eighteenth it was surpassed by Copenhagen. The people
of Bergen have always been distinctly liberal in thought and feeling.
Holberg, Ludvig (1684-1754), was born in Bergen, but resided most
of his life in Denmark. His comedies, which founded modern Danish-
Norwegian literature, are indeed immortal.
Dahl, Fohan Christian Clausen (1788-1857), a Norwegian landscape
painter, who, though born in Bergen, went in 1811 to Copenhagen and
from 1818 resided in Dresden, As subjects he preferred water, rock,
and strand, and showed a realistic tendency in his light-effects.
Welhaven, see page 244.
Ole Bull (18 10-1880), a violinist of world-wide renown. In his later
life he passed most of his time in the United States, but every year he
returned to the home which he maintained near Bergen, at a distance
of about two hours by steamer. Carrying out a plan conceived in 1848,
he established in Bergen with his own means the first Norwegian Na-
tional Theater, which was opened January 2, 1850.
Collin says that the last line of the poem sums up Bjérnson’s view of
Norway’s historical memories as motive power for new achievement.
This seems realized in Bergen’s recent development, —it now has the
largest steam-fleet of all the cities in Norway.
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