Arne Garborg

From Philosopedia

Arne Garborg (25 January 1851 - 14 January 1924)

Aadne Eivindsson Garborg grew up on a farm named Garborg near Undheim, Rogaland County, Norway.

In 1872 he established a newspaper, Tvedestrandsposten, and in 1877 the Fedraheimen, which he edited until 1892. In the 1880s he was also a journalist for the Dagbladet. In 1894 he laid the ground, together with Rasmus Steinsvik, for the paper Den 17 de Mai, which changed its name to Norsk Tidend in 1935.

Garborg championed the use of Nynorsk, New Norwegian, which is based on rural dialects, as a literary language; he translated the Odyssey into it. Several of his early novels presented male views in the debate on sexual morality conduted throughout the 1880s. Two novels, Tired Men (1891) and Peace (1892, tr. 1929), relate the disintegration of morally bankrupt and guilt-ridden men.

Carolyne Larrington, in the Times Literary Supplement, wrote:

• Garborg's ability to evoke the bleak interior world of the man who believes he is truly the only freethinker among his freethinking friends, yet who, in his dealings with women, is constrained by intellectual, aesthetic and class snobbery, is surpassed only by his extraordinary imagination: a later section of the novel forecasts almost exactly the invention of cable television. There is pleasure to be found in the ironic juxtaposition of Garborg's hero with his contemporaries, but somehow Weary Men was, despite its surprising ending, somewhat wearying to read.

According to Time kommune,

His attitude towards the church was in constant change, in the 1890's he was concerned with ethics, and a lot of his views were based upon Christianity, however a very different and more open Christianity than the pietistic and depressing kind that he experienced during his childhood at Jæren. In the 1890's Garborg is also becoming a very skilled describer of nature in his authorship.

Towards the end of his life he received a salary from the state to do work promoting the national language, and he spent a great deal of time on translating the grand international classics to the national idiom. He gradually became a highly respected man, even though he was controversial and denied salary for a period due to having "dangerous ideas". To honour him for his 70's birthday, he was given 100 000 Norwegian kroner by the Norwegian people.

Bibliography

Ein Fritenkjar (1878)

Bondestudentar (1883)

Forteljingar og Sogar (1884)

Mannfolk (1886)

Uforsonlige (1888)

Hjaa ho Mor (1990)

Kolbotnbrev (1890)

Trætte Mænd (1891) (published in English as Tired Men or Weary Men)

Fred (1892) (published in English as Peace)

Jonas Lie. En Udviklingshistorie (1893)

Haugtussa (1895) (Poetry)

Læraren (1896)

Den burtkomme Faderen (1899) (published in English as The Lost Father)

I Helheim (1901)

Knudahei-brev (1904)

Jesus Messias (1906)

Heimkomin Son (1906)

Dagbok 1905-1923 (1925–1927)

Tankar og utsyn (1950)