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Når man skal arbeide med Knut Hamsun i skolen, står norsklærerne overfor et dilemma: Hvordan skal man ta hensyn til at Hamsun ikke bare er en av Norges mest kjente forfattere, men også Norges mest kjente nazist? Hvordan skal historien om Hamsun presenteres på en balansert måte? En gjennomgang av en del lærebøker i litteratur og litteraturhistorie forteller om hvordan Hamsunproblemet har blitt håndtert i skolen etter krigen. Er det riktig, slik nyere litteraturforskere har hevdet, at vi har skjult Hamsuns politiske sider, og i stedet hyllet den geniale forfatteren? Teachers in Norwegian schools face a dilemma when teaching literature: How do they balance the presentation of Knut Hamsun – one of Norway’s most influential writers AND most prominent supporters of the Nazi occupation? How can Hamsun's life and writings be presented in a balanced way? By examining school textbooks in literary history, we can better understand how “the Hamsun problem” has been handled in school. Is it correct, as it has been claimed, that the political side of Hamsun has been hidden away in Norway, and instead saluted as the brilliant author? © 2018 The author(s). This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly credited.

This article examines Hamsun’s The Ring is Closed (1936) through the lens of modernity and modernism. A common notion has been that The Ring is Closed is an exception from the division between an early modernist phase and a later realist phase in Hamsun’s oeuvre. This article argues that Hamsun deals with modernity in a fundamentally different way in 1936 than he did in the 1890s. Today we should be able to see Abel Brodersen’s fatalism, cynicism, and lack of drive as an expression of 1930s modernism. What are the characteristics of such modernism? To which of his contemporary modernist characters can we compare Abel Brodersen? What literary techniques does Hamsun employ, and how can we characterize the language and the narrative structure? How does the modernist Hamsun in 1936 compare to Hamsun in 1890? These are some of the questions posed in this article.

This article discusses the play The Old Nazi: The Tragedy of a Genius, written by the Czech journalist Martin Komárek and staged in Prague in 2010/2011. It presents both the formal and the thematic aspects of the drama and argues that this unique text deserves to be known outside of the Czech Republic. Komárek made himself familiar with various information about Hamsun’s life, but this did not curb his imagination; his play works very well as theater. The drama contains many fictitious events and dialogues, yet at the same time, it does not distort in any major way the historical image of Hamsun. The play is thus well balanced and provides a very good basis for potentially successful theater productions.

Published version. Source at http://doi.org/10.7557/13.3756. License CC BY 4.0. This article uses a regional perspective to compare the novels of Lars Berg with Knut Hamsun’s novels set in northern Norway. What characterizes the northern Norwegian storytelling tradition, and is it possible to define it? In order to close in on this concept, this article focuses on certain aspects of setting, including: fishery, trade, language, and character.

In the essay “Sjelens Amerika” [“The America of the Soul”], Karl Ove Knausgård claims that the reason why we still perceive Knut Hamsun’s novels as fresh and present is because they display our own modern world in its very creation, at a time when it was full of “the power of the unfinished” and not yet stiffened in accomplished systems. In this article, I argue that the idea of “the power of the unfinished” is an aesthetic category describing the core of a poetics common to Knausgård and Hamsun.

Often when the theme of Hamsun and the Sami is discussed, the focus is on the nation building structures and negative generalizations contained in Growth of the Soil (1917). Hamsun’s earlier novel Pan (1894) is sometimes mentioned in passing as an example of a more positive or neutral attitude towards the Sami. This essay adds some nuance to this narrative by examining the motif of the Sami in Pan with a line drawn to the novel Rosa (1908). The presence of the Sami is limited in Pan. Hamsun relegates them to the relatively inhospitable mountains surrounding the coastal village of Sirilund. When they do appear, Glahn’s interactions with the Sami play an interesting part in the story of the porous identity of this narrating main character. In Rosa, which like Pan is set in Sirilund, Edvarda remembers Glahn, and she makes a symbolic link between his sexual power and the Sami. Later, in what is for Hamsun an uncharacteristically sexually explicit scene between Edvarda and the Sami character Gilbert Lap, we can find an echo of the famous scene from Pan where the goat god makes his only appearance, mocking Glahn through silent laughter.

Knut Hamsun’s polemic about the Norwegian Nansen cult round 1889 (on the occasion of Fridtjof Nansen’s ski crossing of Greenland), which he published in a newspaper article titled “Meditations on Nansen” (“Nansen-Betragtninger”), was mainly directed against the public enthusiasm for sportive records as a typical modern trend, whose pointless absurdity Hamsun shows in an incisive and specifically provocative way. His critique is primarily aimed at a kind of hero worship that in his opinion is out of all proportion to the uselessness of the expedition’s results. Thus, “a daredevil, well finished adventure, a breakneck act, a sports affair, a lucky strike,” as he outlines Nansen’s venture, becomes the basis for a mass hysteria whose driving forces are invested in the signatures of modernity. The fascination of crossing the line and of extreme forms of progress in “both sports and science”, their entanglement as an example for the “proliferation of hybrids” (Latour 1993), and the contingent dimension of success stories are symptoms of modernity that Hamsun is polemically engaged with. In conclusion, I investigate to what extent Hamsun ironically refers to these symptoms in his novel Editor Lynge (Redakteur Lynge, 1893). My argument is supported by the assumption that Hamsun’s vehement denunciation of such tendencies is owed to the fact that he himself is embroiled in them.

The article brings the critical reading of Knut Hamsun’s På turné – the collection of Hamsun’s three polemic lectures entitled: “Norsk litteratur”, “Psykologisk litteratur” and “Modelitteratur”. These texts make up Hamsun’s theoretical and literary manifesto (1891), which up to the present has remained an important introduction to his early and most acclaimed work. In two first sections of the text I follow Hamsun’s scornful arguments against Norwegian realistic literature (as represented mainly by “the great four” writers: Bjørnson, Ibsen, Lie and Kielland) in an attempt to concisely present Hamsun’s reformatory plan according to which Norwegian literature should be freed from its entanglement in didacticism and social bias and redirected onto a path of a deeper psychology. The final part of the article presents a critical assessment of Hamsun’s endeavor. I believe some of Hamsun’s opinions in the matter of literature are still up-to-date and thoughtprovoking. These insights, however, have to be separated from Hamsun’s hasty generalizations concerning the work of Bjørnson, Lie, Kielland, and Ibsen which I defend against Hamsun’s malicious argumentation. In the final part of the paper På turné is assessed with regard to the ways of how Hamsun’s oeuvre has evolved in time. This approach enables one to grasp some of På turné paradoxes, e.g.: the discrepancy between Hamsun’s early literary stance (neo-romanticism and militant, anti-bourgeois views) and the shape his work assumed later on (didacticism, the tendency to morally judge his heroes, support for the vulgar ideology of fascism, etc.).

Disputas avholdt ved Universitetet i Tromsø, 17. juni 2009. Avhandlingen er tilgjengelig i vitenarkivet Munin.

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I ar er vi igjen blitt vitne til diskusjoner om nobelprisen, selv om det ikke dreide seg om nominasjonen innen litteratur, men til fredsprisen. I denne anledningen vil jeg vie artikkelen mitt til to nobelpristagere som heller ikke ble allment anerkjent, nemlig den norske forfatteren Knut Hamsun og den russiske dikteren Josef Brodsky. Jeg vil gjerne understreke at jeg ville stemt "for" i alle de tre tilfellene. Videre skal jeg konsentrere meg om Hamsun og Brodsky, men ikke bare dem. Knut Hamsuns brede popularitet i Russland ved forrige artusenskiftet kan som kjent ha startet takket vaere anstrengelsene til mesenen Sergej Poliakov (1877 – 1942) som hadde arvet en blomstrende forretning etter sin far (faren eide et kledeveveri). Vladislav Khodasevitsj forteller folgende i sin erindringsbok Om mesener fra 1936

Et emne som i en arrekke har skapt hoy temperatur i Hamsunforskningen, er sporsmalet om Knut Hamsun var antisemitt eller ikke. Ogsa i Hamsun-aret 2009 kom denne tematikken til overflaten, bade i avisdebatter, seminarer og konferanser. Som i andre sporsmal knyttet til hans politiske synspunkter har det her dannet seg en floy med ideologikritikere og en floy med apologeter. Dette er med pa a skape en debatt som gjerne er noksa polarisert. At Hamsuns stotte til nazismen fremdeles framkaller sterke folelser hos mange nordmenn, medvirker ogsa til en slik polarisering. Det er vanskelig, men noen ganger ogsa nodvendig, a kombinere liv og diktning i litteraere studier. I letingen etter forbindelseslinjer mellom Knut Hamsuns tekster og fascisme/nazisme/antisemittisme er det mange momenter som bor tas i betraktning, og jeg vil her forsoke a gjore nettopp det. En pionerstudie i dette feltet var Leo Lowenthals essay “Knut Hamsun. Zur Vorgeschichte der autoritaren Ideologie” fra 1937. Den tyske sosiologen Lowenthal var medlem av den marxistisk

Knut Hamsun's play Munken Vendt may be considered a compendium of transgression of many kinds. We see in the play sexual transgression, violence, blasphemy, transgression of social rules (theft, opposition to class divisions), as well as the crossing of boundaries. The protagonist can be seen as an anticipation of the French writer Georges Bataille -- the former Catholic turned libertine fascinated with evil. Aesthetic transgression is evident as well: Hamsun transgressed against rules of style and genre in writing his monstrous eight-act verse play. The play is a confused cry of revolt.

The paper investigates the main problems of Knut Hamsun's reception in Bulgaria. It is an attempt to classify the language peculiarities in the works of the Norwegian writer and their delivering by translation into Bulgarian, which was made in the context of the culture transfer. Materials of the research are the original texts and all accessible translations to Bulgarian: works of art analyzed here from linguistic point of view by a linguostylistic analyze.

This historical overview examines how the literary works of Knut Hamsun have been adapted into films over the past century, from early silent cinema to the digital age. It traces how different national and transnational cinemas have appropriated the author's texts at different historical moments. Nazi propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels, for example, took a keen interest in two Third Reich adaptations of Hamsun novels (Victoria and Pan) in the 1930s. Pan remains the Hamsun novel most frequently adapted, while Henning Carlsen's 1966 pan-Scandinavian version of Hunger is arguably the artistic highpoint to date. Nations producing or co-producing Hamsun films include Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Germany, France, the Netherlands, Russia, the United States, and Canada (Guy Maddin's 1997 Twilight of the Ice Nymphs). Hamsun at the movies has shown remarkable elasticity, crossing multiple borders, and being appropriated by disparate national cinemas for surprisingly diverse ends., &nbsp

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Når dominansrelasjoner etableres, skjer det gjennom et samspill av forskjellige faktorer, som fungerer som maktlegitimerende i et bestemt samfunn. Å undersøke sammenspillet mellom maktetablerende faktorer i Børn av Tiden er interessant av forskjellige grunner: Alle forholdmellom de sentrale personene i fortellingen er først og fremst maktforhold. Dessuten viser Børn av Tiden et samfunn i forandring. Når makten forflyttes og maktfaktorene forandres, kan man lettere iaktta hvordan makt installeres. Denne artikkelen vil prøve å vise hvordan det gamle hierarkiet legitimeres gjennom de forskjellsskapende kategoriene kjønn, makt og penger og hvordan installasjonen av det nye systemet beskrives i Børn av Tiden.

Øystein Rottem arbeidet med Hamsuns romaner gjennom hele sitt liv som litteraturforsker og -kritiker. Innenfor Rottems virke ser ikke Pan ut til å innta noen sentral stilling, men hans Pan-studie ble gitt ut i tre forskjellige versjoner over et tidsrom på 16 år. Artikkelens resepsjonshistorie ser imidlertid ikke ut til å motsvare utgivelseshistorien. Når Rottems artikkel siteres, vises det til hans gjengivelse av Pan-resepsjonen (Wærp 1999, 215), eller hans uttalelser om romanpersonenes psykologi (Brøgger 1999, 201ff.). Når det gjelder hovedsynspunktene i Rottems artikkel, er det bare tilsynelatende en enkel oppgave å gjengi dem, og det er kanskje ikke urimelig å anta at dette er en av årsakene til den mangel på resonans de har støtt på i den senere Pan-litteraturen. Siktemålet med de følgende bemerkningene er ikke å diskutere hvorvidt de resultatene Øystein Rottem kom frem til som Panfortolker, er passende. I stedet ønsker jeg å ta utgangspunkt i to vanskeligheter som kan oppleves under lesingen av Rottems artikkel om Pan. Disse vanskelighetene kommer etter mitt syn spesielt tydelig til syne i Rottems artikkel, men har også generelle sider som av plasshensyn imidlertid bare kan behandles flyktig her.

My article will present an examination of interactional styles in dialogues created by Knut Hamsun in his 1910 play In the Grip of Life (Livet i vold). Hamsun equipped his protagonists with a particular speech. The point of the analysis is to investigate how Hamsun fleshed out his protagonists' speech styles, what he deemed as the most suitable and appropriate speech for women and men, and how he lets them transgress it. In fact, Hamsun uses transgression of the traditional rules of gender communication as his creative technique. Following Weber-Knapp's strategy, my analysis will focus on the following: length and frequency of speech contributions, interruptions, and initiating and responding utterances

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Hamsuns forfatterskap omfatter samer som folkegruppe, det bodde mange samer på Hamarøy der Hamsun vokste opp, og man kan hevde at nærheten til et annet folkeslag har preget forfatterskapet. Særlig ser vi samer og rasistisk motiverte fordommer mot samer i Markens grøde, som ga Hamsun Nobelprisen i 1920, tre år etter at den var utgitt.

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Denne artikkelen dreier seg om forholdet mellom ironi og metafiksjonalitet, og hvilken rolle disse fenomenene sammen spiller i Knut Hamsuns roman Siste Kapitel (1923). Romanen er valgt fordi den etter mitt syn er bygget opp på en utpreget ironisk måte: Både karakterer, steder og synspunkter er ordnet etter et kontrastivt, eller om man vil, ironisk, mønster (…).

Dette skal handle om Hamsuns “Feberdikte”, fra Hamsuns første ogeneste diktsamling, Det vilde kor, utgitt i 1904. Øystein Rottem ogjeg snakket mang en gang om at noen burde sette seg ned og ta forseg denne teksten på analytisk vis. Så her kommer et lite forsøk.

This article examines the representation of the primitive in two peasant novels, Émile Zola's La Terre (1887, trans. as The Earth) and Knut Hamsun's Markens grøde (1917, trans. as Growth of the Soil). The concept of the primitive crosses a wide range of issues that were central to naturalist and decadent literature at the turn of the twentieth century, from unconscious instincts to the fascination with exotic cultures. It thus offers a fruitful medium for the comparative reading of French and Nordic fiction of the era. I especially focus on analysing the diverse, representative practices of Zola's and Hamsun's works, which betray stylistic differences in their portrayal of the primitive. I suggest that by describing the primitive as a vital, transgressive force that even turns against itself - against nature - Zola's La Terre creates a decadent version of the primitive, which, instead of a "serious", naturalistic portrayal of everyday life, is drawn to the brutal, instinctive primitive and uses the primitive to create vital forces of transgression. Hamsun's neo-naturalist novel, in turn, reconfigures the naturalist themes in a new form and envisions a fusion of the Darwinian, naturalistic primitive and the Romantic cult of innocent primordiality, suggesting the primitive lifestyle as a nostalgic return to a pre-modern lifestyle and a turn away from the degeneration of modernity.