Knut Hamsun (; 4 August 1859 – 19 February 1952) was a Norwegian writer who was awarded the 1920 Nobel Prize in Literature for his novel Growth of the Soil. Hamsun's work spans more than 70 years and shows variation with regard to consciousness, subject, perspective and environment. He published more than 23 novels, a collection of poetry, some short stories and plays, a travelogue, works of non-fiction and some essays.
Hamsun is considered "one of the most influential and innovative literary stylists of the past hundred years" (ca. 1890–1990).Robert Ferguson (1987). Enigma: The Life of Knut Hamsun, New York, N.Y.: Farrar, Straus & Giroux, He pioneered psychological literature with techniques of stream of consciousness and interior monologue, and influenced authors such as Thomas Mann, Franz Kafka, Maxim Gorky, Stefan Zweig, Henry Miller, Hermann Hesse, John Fante, James Kelman, Charles Bukowski and Ernest Hemingway. Isaac Bashevis Singer called Hamsun "the father of the modern school of literature in his every aspect—his subjectiveness, his fragmentariness, his use of flashbacks, his lyricism. The whole modern school of fiction in the twentieth century stems from Hamsun".Isaac Bashevis Singer (1967). Introduction to Hunger Since 1916, several of Hamsun's works have been adapted into motion pictures. On 4 August 2009, the Knut Hamsun Centre was opened in Hamarøy Municipality.
The young Hamsun objected to realism and naturalism. He argued that the main object of modernist literature should be the intricacies of the human mind, that writers should describe the "whisper of blood, and the pleading of bone marrow".Knut Hamsun (1890). "Fra det ubevidste Sjæleliv", Samtiden, September 1890 Hamsun is considered the "leader of the Neo-Romantic revolt at the turn of the 20th century", with works such as Hunger (1890), Mysteries (1892), Pan (1894), and Victoria (1898).The new encyclopædia Britannica: Volum 5 His later works—in particular his "Nordland novels"—were influenced by the Norwegian new realism, portraying everyday life in rural Norway and often employing local dialect, irony, and humour.Hal May, Contemporary Authors, Volum 119, Gale, 1986 Hamsun published only one poetry collection, The Wild Choir, which has been set to music by several composers.
Hamsun held strong Anglophobic views, and openly supported Adolf Hitler and Nazi Germany: he donated his Nobel Prize medal to Joseph Goebbels, propaganda Minister for the Third Reich and met Hitler during the German occupation of Norway. Due to his professed support for the occupation of Norway and the Quisling regime, he was charged with treason after the war. Due to alleged psychological problems and issues relating to old age, he was not convicted, but in 1948 he was heavily fined. Hamsun's last book, On Overgrown Paths, authored in semi-imprisonment in Landvik, concerned his postwar treatment and his rebuttal to accusations of mental ineptness.
Biography
Early life Knut Hamsun was born as Knud Pedersen in 1859 in Lom Municipality in the Gudbrandsdalen valley, Norway.Hamsun bio at Nobel Prize website. He was the fourth son among the seven children of Tora Olsdatter and Peder Pedersen. When he was three, the family moved to Hamsund in Hamarøy Municipality in Nordland county. They were poor and an uncle had invited them to farm his land for him.
At nine Knut was separated from his family and lived with his uncle Hans Olsen, who needed help with the post office he ran. Olsen used to beat and starve his nephew, and Hamsun later stated that his chronic nervous difficulties were due to how his uncle treated him.
In 1874 he finally escaped back to Lom. For the next five years he did any job for money: shop assistant, peddler, shoemaker's apprentice, sheriff's assistant, and an elementary-school teacher.
At 17 he became a ropemaker's apprentice. At about the same time he started to write. He asked businessman Erasmus Zahl to give him monetary support, and he agreed. Hamsun later used Zahl as a model for the character Mack appearing in his novels Pan (1894), Dreamers (1904), Benoni (1908) and Rosa (1908).Citation: [...] dobbeltromanen Benoni og Rosa fra 1908. I skikkelse av oppkomlingen BenoniHartvigsen tegner Hamsun her for første gang et portrett av en allmuens mann i full skikkelse, med ironisk distanse, men også med betydelig sympati.
He spent several years in America, traveling and working at various jobs, and published in 1889 his impressions under the title Fra det moderne Amerikas Aandsliv ("From the Spiritual Life of Modern America").
Married life
In 1898, Hamsun married Bergljot Bech (later Göpfert), who bore daughter Victoria, but the marriage ended in 1906. Hamsun then married Marie Andersen (1881–1969) in 1909 and she was his companion until the end of his life. They had four children: sons Tore and Arild and daughters Ellinor and Cecilia.
Marie wrote about her life with Hamsun in two memoirs. She was a promising actress when she met Hamsun but ended her career and traveled with him to Hamarøy. They bought a farm, planning "to earn their living as farmers, with his writing providing some additional income".
After a few years they moved south, to Larvik. In 1918 they bought Nørholm, an old, somewhat dilapidated manor house in Landvik Municipality, between Lillesand and Grimstad. The main residence was restored and redecorated. Here Hamsun could occupy himself with writing undisturbed, although he often travelled to write in other cities and places, preferring spartan housing.
Early literary career
In 1877, he published his first book: Den Gaadefulde: En Kjærlighedshistorie fra Nordland (The Enigmatic Man: A Love Story from Northern Norway). It was inspired by his odd job experiences and struggles. In his second novel Bjørger (1878), he attempted to imitate Bjørnstjerne Bjørnson's writing style. The melodramatic story follows a poet, Bjørger, and his love for Laura. This book was published under the pseudonym Knud Pedersen Hamsund. This book served as the basis for Hamsun's later novel Victoria: En Kærligheds Historie (1898; translated as Victoria: A Love Story, 1923)..
As of 1898 Hamsun was among the contributors of Ringeren, a political and cultural magazine established by Sigurd Ibsen.
Major works Hamsun first received wide acclaim with his 1890 novel Hunger (Sult). The semiautobiographical work described a young writer's descent into near madness as a result of hunger and poverty in the Norwegian capital of Kristiania (modern name Oslo). To many, the novel presages the writings of Franz Kafka and other twentieth-century novelists with its internal monologue and bizarre logic.
A theme to which Hamsun often returned is that of the perpetual wanderer, an itinerant stranger (often the narrator) who insinuates himself into the life of small rural communities. This theme is central to the novels Mysteries, Pan, Under the Autumn Star, The Last Joy, Vagabonds, Rosa, and others.
Hamsun's prose often contains rapturous depictions of the natural world, with intimate reflections on the Norwegian woodlands and coastline. For this reason, he has been linked with the spiritual movement known as pantheism ("No one knows God," he once wrote, "man knows only gods."). Hamsun saw mankind and nature united in a strong, sometimes mystical bond. This connection between the characters and their natural environment is exemplified in the novels Pan, A Wanderer Plays on Muted Strings, and Growth of the Soil, "his monumental work" credited with securing him the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1920.
World War II, arrest and trial As early as 1918 during World War I, Hamsun's pro-German attitude had been noted and The Atlantic speculated that the cause may have been "a love of opposition to average opinion." During World War II, Hamsun supported the German war effort. He courted and met with high-ranking Nazi officers, including Adolf Hitler. Nazi Minister of Propaganda Joseph Goebbels wrote a long and enthusiastic diary entry concerning a private meeting with Hamsun; according to Goebbels, Hamsun's "faith in German victory is unshakable".The Goebbels Diaries, 1942–1943, translated, edited, and introduced by Louis P. Lochner, 1948, pp. 303–304. Goebbels also claimed that "from childhood on he [Hamsun] has keenly disliked the English". In 1940 Hamsun wrote that "the Germans are fighting for us".
On 13 June 1945, after the war, he was detained by police for treason, then committed to a hospital in Grimstad (Grimstad sykehus) "due to his advanced age", according to Einar Kringlen, a professor and medical doctor. In 1947 he was tried in Grimstad and fined.(translation of title: Hamsun was not psychiatrically ill – Psychiatrist Terje Øiesvold at Salten psychiatric center opines that Knut Hamsun did not have svekkede sjelsevner ("diminished" + "soul" + "abilities") "– Hamsun ikke psykisk syk – Psykiater Terje Øiesvold ved Salten psykiatriske senter mener Knut Hamsun ikke hadde svekkede sjelsevner. Hamsun burde vært stilt for retten for sin nazi-sympati under krigen."; quote: "I 1947 mottok Knut Hamsun endelig sin dom. I en rettsak i Grimstad ble han idømt en bot som var så stor at han i realiteten var ruinert for alltid. " Norway's supreme court reduced the fine from 575,000 to 325,000 Norwegian kroner.
After the war, Norwegians were torn between aversion to Hamsun's Nazi sympathies and regard for his achievements and fame as a writer. At his trial Hamsun had pleaded ignorance. Other explanations have cited his contradictory personality, his distaste for hoi polloi, his inferiority complex, his distress at the spread of indiscipline, his dislike of Norway's interwar democracy, and especially his Anglophobia.Knaplund, Paul. "Knut Hamsun: Triumph and Tragedy". Modern Age Vol. 9, Issue 2. Chicago: Foundation for Foreign Affairs, 1965. 165–174.
Death Knut Hamsun died on 19 February 1952, aged 92, in Grimstad. His ashes are buried in the garden of his home at Nørholm in Landvik Municipality (now part of Grimstad Municipality).
Style and themes Scholar and translator Sverre Lyngstad explains that Hamsun had asserted in an 1890 article that for literature to accurately represent mental life, writers must explore:
At the time of composing Mysteries (1892), Hamsun in essays and lectures was criticizing the state of Norwegian literature and promoting a new form of unpredictable psychological writing. Some of Hamsun's critical views received hostile reactions at the time, and he continued his political and cultural stance in dialog of the fictional character Nagel (who for example calls Ibsen's plays “dramatized wood pulp”), and used the book itself as an embodiment of his theory of literature. Hamsun had specifically criticized stereotypes of elder authors and called for characters of "changeable and divided mind" in whom "inconsistency is their fundamental trait."
Along with August Strindberg, Henrik Ibsen, and Sigrid Undset, Hamsun formed a quartet of Scandinavian authors who became internationally known for their works. Hamsun pioneered psychological literature with techniques of stream of consciousness and interior monologue, as found in material by, for example, Joyce, Proust, Mansfield and Woolf. His writing also had a major influence on Franz Kafka. Hamsun's works were translated into German by Cläre Mjøen.
Walter Benjamin wrote in 1929, "it is well known that the Germanic languages are particularly rich in heroes who are windbags, wastrels, and thieves, and who in general have gone to the dogs. Knut Hamsun, a master of such characters, has recently been discovered and celebrated."
Reception