Bjornstjerne Bjornson

Bj?rnstjerne Bj?rnson (1832-1910) was a poet, dramatist, novelist, journalist, editor, public speaker, theatre director, and one of the most prominent public figures in the Norway of his day. He was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1903 and is generally known, together with Henrik Ibsen, Alexander Kielland, and Jonas Lie, as one of "the four great ones" of 19th-century Norwegian literature. His poem "Ja, vi elsker dette landet" ("Yes, We Love This Land") is the Norwegian national anthem. "In the long list of works that bear the name of this great-hearted man of genius none is a more authentic disclosure of his idealism, his poetic conception of life, his love of art, and his command of humor, pathos, sentiment, sympathy, and deep feeling than The Fisher Maiden - a fresh, free, deep-seeing interpretation of the temptations, struggles, joys, sorrows, pains, and exaltations of the artistic temperament." - Hamilton Wright Mabie