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This article examines Knut Hamsun's reactions to the new uses of proper names at the end of the nineteenth century, including the commercial use of celebrity names and trademarks. The topic is studied on three interrelated levels: Hamsun's hostile reaction to the modern advertising industry; his attempts to create a famous name for himself; and finally, his literary representation of these themes in his early work. The advertised name points to a threatening distance between private individual and public persona that raises questions about the possibility to express or communicate authentic identity. This tension is studied in "På turné," which revolves around the launching of the author's name "Hamsun," and in Mysterier , where the meaning of names as well as the novel's modernist narrative form are intimately linked to Hamsun's experiences of the emerging practices of advertising and branding. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Over noen høstmåneder i 1978 skapte Thorkild Hansens Prosessen mot Hamsun omfattende debatt i Skandinavia. Hansen var den første som i et så bredt anlagt prosjekt og med kommersielle siktepunkt tok fatt på å fremstille Knut Hamsuns virke under annen verdenskrig og rettsoppgjøret i etterkant. Fremstillingen ble båret i den hybride genren dokumentarisme, som kan sies å kombinere sakprosa og fiksjon, som i et tiår hadde en fremtredende og feiret posisjon i Skandinavia. Artikkelen gir et tilbakeblikk på en genre, en utgivelse og debatten den avstedkom ved å kaste lys over Hansens kildebruk og stil. Avslutningsvis utspørres det hvorvidt Hansen skuslet bort sitt anliggende med genren han skrev i, og videre hvordan genredebatter ikke har tapt aktualitet i nyere tid.

Copyright of Nordlit is the property of Universitetet i Tromsoe and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Most critical studies on John Fante tend to insist exclusively on his Italianness putting into evidence his biographical experiences and Italian roots at the expense of the complex literary inheritance underlying his vocation. Through a reading of Ask the Dust, the present paper intends to propose a portrayal of the author as an authentically American voice who was fully aware of the great novelistic tradition that shaped his literary sensibility. At the same time, Fante's discovery of the novels of the Norwegian author Knut Hamsun, through the suggestion of the independent literary agent Elizabeth Nowell, shows how his development was based on a variety of influences that went beyond Italian literature and culture. Thus, Fante's indisputable originality lies precisely in his wide-raging vision and capacity to embrace diverse languages and cultures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The novels of the Norwegian Nobel Prize winner Knut Hamsun can be seen as an ongoing discussion with modernity. In some parts his critique is reactionary, in other parts worth listening to. This article deals with his Segelfoss novels, Hamsun’s satirical representation of the commodity trade within the emerging capitalist market and the role of the consumer. The novels may be read as early and thought-provoking contributions to the large amount of literature on consumers and their nature. Is growth always good? What has been lost? Die Romane des norwegischen Nobelpreisträgers Knut Hamsun können als eine ständige Auseinandersetzung mit der Moderne betrachtet werden. In einigen Teilen ist seine Kritik reaktionär, in anderen Teilen hörenswert. In diesem Artikel geht es um seine Segelfoss-Romane, Hamsuns satirische Darstellung des Warenhandels im aufkommenden kapitalistischen Markt und der Rolle des Verbrauchers. Die Romane können als frühe und zum Nachdenken anregende Beiträge zu der großen Menge an Literatur über Verbraucher und ihr Wesen gelesen werden. Ist Wachstum immer gut? Was ist verloren gegangen?

Copyright of Tijdschrift voor Skandinavistiek is the property of Tijdschrift voor Skandinavistiek and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The article examines similarities between ”Glahns død. Et papir fra 1861”, i.e., the second part of Knut Hamsun’s novel Pan (1894), and Joseph Conrad’s novel Heart of Darkness (1899). The comparative analysis demonstrates that the two texts have several common features both in terms of setting, thematic aspects and narrative technique. Both ”Glahns død” and Heart of Darkness take as a point of departure a riverboat journey into the jungle. Both texts thematize the differences between the European civilization and the “uncivilized” exotic world and focus on the contrasts between the civilized and the primitive life, the rational and the irrational behavior. Both stories are narrated by a male narrator personality that is strongly fascinated by another man, and in each case the text involves a partially unreliable witness type of narrator. The article describes some of these common features as modernist and confirms the position of both novels in early modernism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Sammendrag I 1911 skrev Hamsun en begeistret omtale av Johan Turis Muitalus sámiid birra – En bog om lappernes liv (1910), en bok som i dag regnes som en klassiker innen samisk litteratur. I denne nylesningen av Markens grøde (1917) argumenterer jeg for at Hamsuns nobelprisroman kan betraktes som et sideskrift til Turis bok. I likhet med Turis bok om samene er Hamsuns bonderoman en bredt anlagt beskrivelse av en i moderniteten utsatt kultur og levemåte og utformet som et innlegg i samtiden om denne kulturens verdi og om statens forvaltning av ressursene. Lesningen åpner for en ny forståelse av Hamsuns omdiskuterte roman, idet den lar bondens og samens situasjon sidestilles, samtidig som romanen blir et partsinnlegg hvor Hamsun taler bondens sak. Lesningen åpner også for en mer nyansert forståelse av framstillingen av samene i romanen og av forholdet mellom samer og bønder, og viser at konflikten om bruken av utmarka til jordbruk versus reindrift er representert selv om den ikke tematiseres eksplisitt, og at den setter romanens suksesshistorie i perspektiv.

Norway was going through important changes in the 19th century. It was a time of disruption, when the old rural society was transformed by the growing industrialisation, by the development of transportation and the expansion of free trade, when internal migration reached its peak as farmers struggled to survive using the old ways of living that had been passed on from generations and that no longer seemed to work in the modernized world. This paper argues that, although the need for change of the old habits was at the basis of the mass exodus to the New World, migration facilitated the emergence of modernity in Norway. America letters played an important role, as they both convinced the families and friends of the emigrants to embark for America, but they also helped increase the literacy rate in the homeland. Further on, the discussion will focus on the American experience of Knut Hamsun and Sigbjørn Obstfelder, which helped them gain recognition as forerunners of modernism in Norway

In 1920, the Norwegian novelist Knut Hamsun won the Nobel Prize for literature for his novel Markens grøde (Growth of the Soil) (1917). This article explores some of the key contexts for this work, highlighting the author's own ambitions, the reasons why he sided with Germany during the war, and his generally völkisch perspectives on the Germanic and Nordic. It furthermore analyses the early reception of this World War I novel, and how it was first subjected to a number of positive readings and seen as an example of idealism, before being appropriated by Nazism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

I artikeln analyseras Knut Hamsuns novell ”Hemmelig ve” (1897) ur queer-perspektiv. Artikeln argumenterar för att Hamsuns novell skildrar ett samkönat erotiskt begär mellan berättaren och den man som betecknas som ”den främmande”. Den främmande förstås som berättarens dubbelgångare, och i egenskap av dubbelgångare representerar han berättarens förbjudna begär. Denna tolkning tar som utgångspunkt en jämförelse mellan 1897 års text och den tidigare version av samma novell som gavs ut under titeln ”Underlige Sjæle” (1891), samt genom en närläsning av de båda männens möten. Artikeln avslutas med en diskussion kring Hamsunforskningens förhållande till queerteori.

Målet med denne artikkelen er å vise hvordan tekstene til Knut Hamsun reiser over lande- og sjangergrenser, nærmere sagt: hvordan hans episke tekster fungerer på de polske scenene. Artikkelen begynner med en historisk oversikt over Hamsuns verk i polsk oversettelse fra 1890-årene til dagens dato. Deretter blir en liste over alle polske dramatiseringer av romanene hans presentert og omtalt. To av forestillingene, nemlig Tangen (2005, regissert av Łukasz Witt-Michałowski) og Knut Hamsuns sult (Głód Knuta Hamsuna, 2010, gjennomført av Łukasz Witt-Michałowski og Ryszard Kalinowski) blir nærmere analysert med hensyn til tekniske løsninger anvendt i framføringene og eventuelle teaterteorier eller -tilnærminger disse løsningene har sitt opphav i. Artikkelen omtaler også mottakelse av de to forestillingene av polske teaterkritikere og anmeldere.

I maj 1929 blev der afviklet et internationalt ’Landstrygerstævne’ (Vagabundentreffen) i Stuttgart hvor Nobelpristageren Knut Hamsun, sammen med andre kendte forfattere var inviteret. Hamsun meldte afbud til arrangørerne men han kvitterede venligt for invitationen med en hilsen til forsamlingen. Hændelsen viser for det første hvor stort et navn Hamsun var i mellemkrigstidens anarkist- og kommunistkredse og for det andet, at han havde sympati for vagabonderne. Allerede i sine tidligste artikler og essays fra 1880’erne havde Hamsun beskæftiget sig med mobile, socialt udsatte individer, specielt i de år hvor han selv turede rundt i USA. Også i resten af Hamsuns forfatterskab er der mange omstrejfende, rodløse eksistenser, bl.a. i Sult (1890), i den såkaldte Augusttrilogi (1927-1933) og i sin sidste, selvbiografiske hybridbog Paa gjengrodde Stier fra 1949. I nærværende bidrag undersøges hvordan vagabonden fungerer som vehikel for Hamsuns modernitetskritik i en række punktnedslag i forfatterskabet. Der tages udgangspunkt i tre faser der er knyttet til tre forskellige tekstgenrer i Hamsuns omfattende produktion: først hans tidlige erindringsessays fra USA i 1880’erne, derefter fokuseres der på to romaner i den såkaldte Augusttrilogi (1927-1933) midt i forfatterskabet, og der sluttes af med Paa gjengrodde Stier.

Artikkelen undersøker relasjonen mellom menneske og natur i Knut Hamsuns Markens grøde (1917) og Stina Aronsons Hitom himlen (1946). Et komparativt perspektiv inspirert av postkolonial økokritikk viser at begge tekstene forholder seg aktivt til et sett av ideologisk ladede forestillinger knyttet til den nordlige ødemarken som motivfelt. Ved å sammenligne fremstillinger av bønder, landskap, dyr, samer og overnaturlige krefter, blir det tydelig at forfatternes måte å forholde seg til dette motivfeltet på, er preget av ganske ulike syn på menneske og natur. Artikkelen tar for seg noen pregnante tekststeder der slike ideologiske posisjoner blir særlig tydelige. Dermed kan artikkelen også leses inn i en pågående diskusjon av Hamsuns omstridte nobelprisroman som en økologisk tekst. Det komparative, situerende og ideologikritiske perspektivet bidrar til å nyansere tidligere økokritiske lesninger, særlig knyttet til samenes status i teksten.

Hamsuns roman er komponert i korte, tilstands- og stemningsorienterte kapitler, har to kontrasterte jegfortellere, fire ulike tidsnivå, vekt på erindring, drøm, ubevisst sjeleliv og det irrasjonelle. Personene, særlig protagonistene Glahn og Edvarda, framstår uten klare motiver, og plotkomposisjonen er vag og åpen. En slik romankomposisjon er utfordrende å adaptere til film og skiller seg kraftig både fra de kunstneriske konvensjonene i samtidens norske bonde- og bygdefilm og fra den framvoksende Hollywood-stilen og det som etterhvert blir den klassiske filmfortellingens ideal. Hovedspørsmålene som stilles i denne artikkelen er derfor hvordan utfordringene er løst, hva som kjennetegner Schwenzens film som adaptasjon av romanen og hvordan adaptasjonen føyer seg inn i norsk filmhistorie og i romanens resepsjons- og tolkningshistorie. Et viktig poeng i artikkelen er at filmen adopterer den modernistiske fortellemåten og formen fra romanen, og gjennom stumfilmsjangerens melodramatiske virkemidler bidrar til å fremme eller forsterke sentrale innovative, modernistiske trekk adoptert fra romanen.

Artikkelen diskuterer På gjengrodde stiers resepsjonshistorie med vekt på hvordan Knut Hamsuns antatte «varig svekkede sjelsevner» har gjort seg gjeldende i lesninger av verket fra utgivelsen og frem til i dag. Jeg argumenterer for at det etableres en forestilling ved utgivelsestidspunktet om at verket På gjengrodde stier «beviser» at konklusjonen om at Hamsun var å anse som en person med varig svekkede sjelsevner ikke stemmer. I den resepsjonshistoriske gjennomgangen viser jeg hvordan denne forestillingen tilsynelatende er så innarbeidet at en rekke lesninger holder den i live uten å stille spørsmål ved eller forklare hvordan et litterært verk kan stå i et motsetningsforhold til en rettsmedisinsk konklusjon. Dette viser seg blant annet i hvordan den litterære teksten presenteres for oss som lesere i dag, noe som diskuteres ved hjelp av Genettes begrep om parateksten. Avslutningsvis argumenteres det for at lesninger av På gjengrodde stier som beveger seg på tvers av fagdisipliner er ønskelig, men at en slik tilnærming krever større metodologisk bevissthet enn det vi hittil har sett.

Hamsuns roman Victoria er et trekantdrama mellom møllerens sønn Johannes, Victoria på godset, og «byherren» og offiseren Otto. Det er samtidig en roman om Johannes' utvikling som forfatter. Artikkelen undersøker forholdet mellom Johannes som en skarp iakttager av foreteelser i naturen – med lukt og synsinntrykk, lyd og taktile fornemmelser – og hans imaginasjonskraft, hans drømmer og visjoner. Hypotesen er at Johannes i sitt forhold til naturen på hjemstedet utvikler det en med økokritikken kan kalle et økologisk selv, og at det skiller ham fra rivalen Otto.

Abstract The article analyzes a case of forgery, which included false documents by Henrik Ibsen and Knut Hamsun, that was debated in court in 2012. The study is based on a number of documents and materials to which the author was given access by Norwegian authorities. Arguing that literary forgeries not only are legal evidence, but also can have historical and aesthetic value, the article discusses what kind of documents were forged, what they tell us about Ibsen’s and Hamsun’s position in today’s literary canon, and how literary history would have changed if these documents had been proven authentic.

Copyright of Turkish Studies - Language & Literature is the property of Electronic Turkish Studies and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Romanian Journal for Baltic & Nordic Studies/Revista Romana de Studii Baltice si Nordice is the property of Sciendo and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Nordlit is the property of Universitetet i Tromsoe and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Nordlit is the property of Universitetet i Tromsoe and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Nordlit is the property of Universitetet i Tromsoe and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Nordlit is the property of Universitetet i Tromsoe and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Nordlit is the property of Universitetet i Tromsoe and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Nordlit is the property of Universitetet i Tromsoe and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Nordlit is the property of Universitetet i Tromsoe and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

In 1935 Ma armastasin sakslast (I Loved a German) was published. In 1928 Victoria (1898) by Knut Hamsun (1859–1952) was published in Estonian. The first was written and the second translated by A. H. Tammsaare (1878– 1940). Parallels between these two authors have been most often discussed in connection with Pan (1894) and Kõrboja peremees (The Master of Kõrboja, 1922). Both authors have earned their canonical position in literature thanks to the novels Markens Grøde (Growth of the Soil) (1917), in the case of Hamsun, and Tõde ja õigus (Truth and Justice, I–V, 1926–1933) in the case of Tammsaare. These novels have been “sorted out” to be included in the canon, while Ma armastasin sakslast and Victoria have not received as much attention. In both novels love is the central theme – in Hamsun’s novel the main characters are the miller’s son Johannes and the landlord’s daughter Victoria, and in Tammsaare’s novel the student Oskar and a baron’s grand daughter, Erika. This article examines the connections between Hamsun and Tammsaare by analysing the novels Victoria and Ma armastasin sakslast, discussing among others the motive that has been widely used in world literature, namely the (archetypical) story of lovers – Romeo and Juliet by Shakespeare. Both novels can be considered as variations on that motive as Tammsaare, for example, adds the social aspect, so that the archetypical love story set in the Republic of Estonia enables him to discuss topics essential to him. In the article the main emphasis is on Tammsaare’s novel.

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?

Knut Hamsun’s Hunger (1890, Sult) is nowadays often regarded as one of the first Scandinavian, or even European, modernist novels. However, some have also classified it as naturalist. The author of the article claims that the text does contain some naturalist elements, but this alone is not a sufficient argument for considering the novel to be naturalist as a whole. The article offers several arguments as to why it is inappropriate to designate Hunger as a naturalist work and supports those readings of the novel that see it as representing a modernist break with realist and naturalist aesthetics.

Gissing's New Grub Street (1891) and Hamsun's Sult (1890) depict distinctive voices of outcast young artists suffering from urban poverty, displacement and isolation, and reveal a deeper insight into wider questions on urban modernity, passive resistance and a fragmented identity. The plots and semi-autobiographical accounts of these texts locate them specifically in late-nineteenth century Kristiania (Oslo) and London by focusing on changing standards of literary culture in the 1880s and 1890s. Hamsun's emphasis on the subjective individual and Gissing's emphasis on representing realist social groupings offer us complementary accounts of the experience of rootlessness, the self-division of outcast emigrant writers and the difficulty of survival by sticking to their own terms in creating and presenting their works of art in the capital. A comparative reading of these texts helps us to see not only their city-specific contexts, but also a transnational understanding of the commercialisation of art and the passive resistance of the artists that spanned the national borders of England and Norway. These urban novels, I suggest, perform a critical resistance to the assimilating forces of late-nineteenth-century modernity and changing economic conditions with the aim of preserving artistic integrity and freedom. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article compares models of authorship presented in Knut Hamsun’s Sult (1890) against the novel itself. It argues that the experiencing narrator’s aspirant authorship is inhibited by psychological anxiety, created by the conflicting models of authorship presented in the novel: the extremely authoritarian, omnipotent, even tyrannical creative power to which the narrator himself aspires on the one hand, and an exclusively monetary valuation of writing work, that of the city around him, on the other. This conflict of authorial models which blocks the experiencing narrator’s writing efforts is undermined by the text itself, which suggests an authorship atomized by anxiety, where the experiencing narrator’s selective, anxious thinking, his body and the city together generate the text. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In 1935 Ma armastasin sakslast (I Loved a German) was published. In 1928 Victoria (1898) by Knut Hamsun (1859-1952) was published in Estonian. The first was written and the second translated by A. H. Tammsaare (1878-1940). Parallels between these two authors have been most often discussed in connection with Pan (1894) and Kõrboja peremees (The Master of Kõrboja, 1922). Both authors have earned their canonical position in literature thanks to the novels Markens Grøde (Growth of the Soil) (1917), in the case of Hamsun, and Tõde ja õigus (Truth and Justice, I-V, 1926-1933) in the case of Tammsaare. These novels have been "sorted out" to be included in the canon, while Ma armastasin sakslast and Victoria have not received as much attention. In both novels love is the central theme - in Hamsun's novel the main characters are the miller's son Johannes and the landlord's daughter Victoria, and in Tammsaare's novel the student Oskar and a baron's grand daughter, Erika. This article examines the connections between Hamsun and Tammsaare by analysing the novels Victoria and Ma armastasin sakslast, discussing among others the motive that has been widely used in world literature, namely the (archetypical) story of lovers - Romeo and Juliet by Shakespeare. Both novels can be considered as variations on that motive as Tammsaare, for example, adds the social aspect, so that the archetypical love story set in the Republic of Estonia enables him to discuss topics essential to him. In the article the main emphasis is on Tammsaare's novel. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Constantinople around 1900 as a Literary World. A Cultural Semiotic Analysis of Scandinavian Examples Constantinople, today’s Istanbul, was in the early 20th century a multiethnic, multireligious, and multilingual city with a diversity of writing systems. It was also an important and influential hub for international trade and politics, for Europe and the Western world. This essay is part of the research programme World Literatures. Cosmopolitan and Vernacular Dynamics, at Stockholm University. It aims to demonstrate how the vernacular (the local) depends on and interacts with the cosmopolitan in literary works on Constantinople during the decades around 1900, with a focus on Scandinavian languages and nationalities. For analysis and discussion I have chosen one poem in Danish by J. P. Jacobsen (1870), and travelogues and short prose texts in Swedish by Birger Mörner (1906) and Stéphanie Beyel (1919), and in Norwegian by Knut Hamsun (1903; 1905). Yuri M. Lotman’s concept of the semiosphere is used in combination with Eric Hayot’s study On Literary Worlds (2012) in order to explore the worldmaking capaci ty of the selected literary works – that is, how literary worlds are created as immanent aspects of literature. It is demonstrated that the literary world of Constantinople cannot be defined as either peripheral within a Western semiosphere or central within the Ottoman semiosphere. Rather, the city functions in these literary works as a threshold between East and West, or as the multilingual, intermediating and ambivalent border between the semiospheres, characterised by its simultaneously separating and uniting features. Unexpected connections between the vernacular elements of the cosmopolitan city are established. The literary world of Constantinople is not only portrayed in the languages of Scandinavian readers; their languages are also a part of the Constantinopolitan multilingual mix.

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Copyright of Nordlit is the property of Universitetet i Tromsoe and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

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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.

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.

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 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.

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.