S. C. Hammer

“ The chief fault with it was that owing to a development which forms a highly-interesting chapter in the cultural history of the country—but which it would take too long to detail—Denmark, as Holberg found her two centuries ago, was about to be stifled by an atmosphere of pedantry, humbug, hypocrisy and unsound ambition. Surrounded by laws and orders in council which interfered with their daily life in the most foolish way and increased the number of misdemeanants, the Danish people was about to lose its self-respect and absorb itself in an indiscriminate imitation of foreign nations. ”

“ He naturally lands again outside of Bergen and ends his days as a modest parish clerk, although never forgetting that once upon a time he used to be an Underground Emperor.
Niels Klim is, no doubt, the highest revelation of Holberg's genius. We find in it all the humour of Peder Paars and the Comedies; his sound judgment and his keenness of observation [30] as an historian; his broad-mindedness as a philosopher; his tolerance as a moralist. As a work of fiction, it yields to none in exuberant phantasy, and the imperturbable calmness of the argument and of the style only adds to its worth. ”

“ The more you try to sound the marvellous authorship of [15] Holberg the more you feel convinced of the importance of his stay at Oxford. It would require several lectures to trace the way in which his impressions and his experiences of Oxford have moulded him as an historian, as a playwright, as a philosopher and moralist. I can only tell you that he took with him from this place to Copenhagen and to the Dano-Norwegian community not only the conviction of his future mission, but practically the very seeds of what should ripen into one of the richest crops in the field of literature. ”

“ He is in high favour with the public, who applaud him with mirth and laughter; he is the pride of his townsmen, who cherish his memory in a special Holberg Club. And in the silent libraries students carefully turn over the leaves of his works to find out new aspects of his genius and of his personality. In fact, the Holberg literature is increasing year by year.
Yet there is one thing wanting. He must be better known abroad, especially in this country. He must become one of the world's classics and find his way to the book-shelves of British homes. ”

“ For just as Oxford is not primarily an institution of education, but through its traditions, its companionships, its achievements, the very embodiment of British genius, British chivalry and British aspirations, so Ludvig Holberg is, indeed, no author in the ordinary sense of the word. He is the founder of modern Norwegian and Danish literature, the greatest playwright, the first critical historian, the most human and most broad-minded moralist and philosopher of two nations; a man whose constant work was one of educating ”

“ Like Peer Gynt, he is put into a mad-house, but some time afterwards he is released and is escorted in triumph out of town. The last glimpse we get of him is where he is made a soldier and has to strip himself of all he is possessed of in order to be set free and become a civilian again. Here the poem ends abruptly, unfinished, as if the author has got tired; but the torso stands out as the work of a genius, and for two centuries it has stood the test of time and towers still as one of the most imposing works of fiction in Northern literature.
Holberg had a double purpose with Peder Paars. ”

“ His name is Erasmus Montanus—an unsurpassable translation of the plain Danish name, Rasmus Berg. He exhibits his learning as a constant display of paradoxes and gives only one evidence of sound judgment and insight. Erasmus is capable of proving that his mother is a stone, because a stone cannot fly, nor can his mother; but as the poor peasant woman gets afraid of this astounding metamorphosis and already thinks her legs are turning cold, he graciously comforts her by the assurance that she can think and speak, which a stone cannot. ”

“ From the commencement of the eighteenth century, London, the famous fire of which in 1666 had given a great impetus to the small timber ports of South-Eastern Norway, became a city of growing importance to our country. During their holidays the Norwegian Oxford students used to spend their time in London, where there was a numerous colony of Danes and Norwegians and a constant influx of seamen and merchants, especially from South Norway. It was not, therefore, altogether by chance that Holberg arrived in England. ”

“ In their outward appearance Holberg's comedies are Danish—customs and manners, names and scenery being contemporary Danish portraits hailing from Copenhagen or from the province—but from within they are unmistakably Norwegian. In fact, the typical characters of the Holberg gallery are not only his compatriots; they are natives of Bergen like himself. The old-fashioned gentleman, Jeronimus, narrow-minded, but possessed of a solid stock of commonsense which will stand no nonsense from the younger generation ”

“ In the Lying-in Room, a most curious portrait of contemporary [23] customs and manners in connection with such a daily event as the birth of a child—we find ourselves in a female gallery, unsurpassed in any literature for variety, liveliness and realism. It might be worthy of a whole lecture on what would certainly prove a highly interesting subject: Holberg and the Fair Sex.
May I finally mention as perhaps the most deeply human of all his comedies, Jeppe on the Hill or The Transformed Peasant. ”

“ Holberg was no less convinced of the true genius of the Protector than of his personal good faith and of his patriotic ambition.
"The greatest gifts of nature," he says, "every one of which would make a man prominent in comparison with others were, to an equal degree, concentrated in Cromwell. He seems to have received something from all nations, for one saw in him Italian shrewdness and cunning, French swiftness, English courage and Spanish firmness. He founded his fabric with cunning; he puts his machine in action with rapidity ”

“ He himself never doubted that they would win the war, thanks to their splendid resources no less than to the very principles for which they fought. In short, it is the prototype of the world's war by which we are confronted—the Spirit of the West, the representative of the political and intellectual liberty of the future struggling against absolutism and all the reactionary powers of the past. ”

“ As a matter of course, Holberg was a staunch pro-ally, and besides this, he was also highly interested in the political events of the day. The Union between England and Scotland which took place during his stay at Oxford, strikes him as one of the most important acts of statesmanship in any age—an event of far-reaching consequences—and he never gets tired of commenting upon it and of subjecting it to new investigations. ”

“ Disguise! hide! there is the more noble appeal: Be thyself, and fear not!
There is a whole literature on Peder Paars in Norwegian and Danish, and it is only fair to say that opinions of the critics vary as to the intrinsic value of the different parts of the poem from a literary point of view. On the other hand, full credit is given to the poem from a cultural standpoint. Generally speaking, Peder Paars is not only the first dazzling display of Holberg's genius as a humorous and satirical writer ”

“ He tells us as willingly why he prefers a cat to a dog, and what a real shoemaker ought to know—as he tells us his opinion on God and eternity; the destination of man and the supposed greatness of the popular heroes of history whom, by the way, he is more inclined to consider as the mischief makers of mankind and the squanderers of its economic wealth. ”

“ Under these circumstances Holberg who, not long ago had published his autobiography as a sort of apology—a literary event which, for various reasons, has been very much discussed by Holberg students—had to give up his activity as a playwright and turn to a work more in conformity with his position as a professor in the University of Copenhagen. But before he did so, he felt it his duty to inform the public that he was the author of the comedies which had hitherto appeared under the fictitious name of a citizen of a provincial town. ”

“ He is, in a certain way, his own Boswell—less obtrusive, however, and, as a consequence, more concise. There is no subject so insignificant that he thinks it below his dignity to discuss it; there is none so exalted that he refrains from expressing his opinion upon it. ”

“ Medicine is considered superfluous, as an academic science, owing to the temperate and regular habits of the Potuites, while Metaphysics is strictly prohibited, those inclined to such studies being promptly banished to the interior of the firmament. The government of Potu is based upon the principles of absolutism, but as the Princes always rule strictly in accordance with the principle of justice and there is a perfect equality among the citizens—all ranks and titles having been abolished centuries ago—the Potuites are very pleased with the state of public affairs and do not want any change. ”

“ All is not gold that glitters—and the substance of it is to serve as a warning against the bad custom of the time of sending young people abroad before they have developed the necessary amount of self-knowledge and commonsense to profit by their stay. ”

“ This was the negative aspect of his sojourn at the Fron Vicarage. Its positive aspect was the time he spent in the library of the vicarage, where, among a number of Greek and Latin classics, he also found several modern foreign books, including some Bibles in English and French, an English and a French dictionary, a French grammar, and an English reader, with colloquial sentences—rather a curious collection of books for a Norwegian inland county towards the end of the seventeenth century. ”

“ Unfortunately a Martinian lady, the wife of one of the most prominent men of the Republic, falls in love with him, and as he declines her advances, her love is changed into hatred and she gets him banished from the country. ”

“ It serves him right when the whole parish finally rises against him, not because of all these foolish assertions, but because of the only theory in which he is perfectly right, and which he proves by fair arguments, that of the earth being round. ”

“ Klim cannot control his European ambition as a reformer, but owing to his foreign origin and his inexperience, he escapes the gallows and is expelled instead. He subsequently arrives in the Republic of Martinia, the inhabitants of which form the most complete contrast to the Potuites. The Martinians are apes, and in their country, which, as can easily be seen, is meant to be a sort of underground France, everything goes with a tremendous [29] speed. Proposals and schemes of every kind are flying about; the number of schemers is unlimited ”

“ Let us take a short review of some of the most famous of his comedies.
First you make the acquaintance of the Tinker Politician—a typical representative of the time, so occupied with speculations and discussions on public affairs that he has no time to look after his own trade. It consequently goes from bad to worse. He is the central figure in a self-appointed board of Blue-Apron Politicians—a saddler, a cutler, a wig-maker, and so on. ”

“ He awakes and believes himself in Paradise, is treated as a Lord by the real owner of the mansion whose sham servility makes him behave himself insolently, and is once more intoxicated and replaced where he was found in his old dirty clothes. ”

“ Full of irony as he was, and "delighted with everything which had an air of novelty"—as he describes himself—he was greatly amused one day by coming across an anonymous pamphlet in which the author endeavoured to prove, by sixty-four arguments, that women have no soul. ”

“ A highly esteemed widow holds the office of Minister of Finance; an elderly unmarried lady is Chief Justice—both to the perfect satisfaction of their compatriots. The sciences taught at the academies of Potu are History, Economy, Mathematics and Jurisprudence. ”

“ It is not absolutely prohibited to make proposals tending to change the existing conditions, but reformers had better take care before launching their proposals, for if they are deemed futile by the commission appointed to consider them, the schemer is sure to be hanged. ”

“ He rejoices in his good luck, denounces his political vanity in a verse which has become classic, and the moral of which may be expressed in the old proverb: "The shoemaker should stick to his last."
In another play we meet Jean de France, a Copenhagen cousin of The Gentleman Dancing Master, as Wycherly presents him in one of his wittiest plays. His name is Hans Frandsen, a Danish family name—plain and unpretentious. But Hans has been ten weeks in Paris and has returned with his name translated. ”

“ It is sufficient to state that the journey lasted about a year, and that Holberg, in the meantime, had many chequered experiences; by way of example, that it is impossible for a man with literary talents to get on at Amsterdam, where, to use his own expression, "trade occupies every man's thoughts, where philosophy is at a discount, and where even men like Grotius and Salmasius have to give way to shipowners and merchants." He therefore ultimately had to return to Norway, arriving in an exhausted condition at Christianssand, where he was assisted by a friend, Mr. ”