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Sigrid Undset (1882-1949)
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Norwegian writer who was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1928.
Sigrid Undset is best-known for her novels about life in the Scandinavian countries during the Middle Ages. Her early fiction dealt with contemporary subjects, problems of city women. Often her heroines face tragic consequences when they are unfaithful for their true inner self or idealistically challenge traditional gender roles.
In his presentation speech, Per Hallström, Chairman of the Nobel Committee of the Swedish Academy, stated that "the erotic life, the problem common to the two sexes, which constitutes the centre of Sigrid Undset's psychological interest, is found again, almost without modifications, in her historical novels. In this respect, objections naturally come to mind. In medieval documents, the feminist question is not known; one never finds hints of the inner personal life which later was to raise this question. The historian, demanding proofs, has the right to note this discrepancy. But the historian's claim is not absolute; the poet has at least an equal right to express himself when he relies on a solid and intuitive knowledge of the human soul." Undset did not deliver a Nobel lecture, but said in her brief acceptance speech that "I write more readily than speak and I am especially reluctant to talk about myself."
Sigrid Undset was born in Kalundborg, Denmark, the daughter of Ingvald, an archeologist, and Anna Charlotte, the daughter of a Danish attorney. Through his father's influence, Undset developed a fascination with medieval history and sagas, ballads, and mythology of Scandinavia. From her mother Undsed derived realistic view of life in general, but she never shared her mother's critical attitude toward religion. When she was two years old, the family moved to Christiania (now Oslo), Norway, where her father took a position at the university.
Ingvald Undset died in 1893, at the age of forty, and the family's financial situation deteriorated. Undset's mother sold her husband's collection of books and antiques, many of which Undset later searched for and acquired back. Ingvald became the model for Lavrans Bjørgulfsson in KRISTIN LAVRANSDOTTER (1920-22). After passing the middle-level exam at a school run by Ragna Nielsen, a supporter of the suffragist movement, Undset took a secretarial training course. To support her mother and two sisters, Undset went to work as a secretary for the Wisbech Electrical Company.
Undset kept the job for the next ten years, read on her spare time, and wrote long letters to her Swedish pen pal, Andrea (Dea) Hedberg. In 1900 she began to work on a historical novel, finishing the manuscript four years later. With the hope of having it published, she took it to Gyldenhal Publishing Company in Copenhagen. The legendary reply of the editor, Peter Nansen, was: "Don't attempt any more historical novels. You have no talent for it. But you might try writing something modern."
Undset's first novel, FRU MARTA OULIE, appeared in 1907, after the publishing house of H. Aschehoug & Co. had first rejected it. "I have been unfaithful to my husband," confessed the protagonist in the story of marital infidelity, which shocked some critics. The novel was followed by a collection of short stories, DEN LYKKELIGE ALDER (1908). The short novel, FORTÆLLINGEN OM VIGA-LJOT OG VIGDIS (1909, Gunnar's Daughter), was an imitation of Icelandic saga and earned her a government scholarship. She left her job and devoted herself entirely to writing.
Her third novel, JENNY (1911), Undset set in partly Rome, depicting with enthusiasm the sights of the Eternal City. "Helge whispered aloud to the city of his dreams, whose streets his feet had never trod and whose buildings concealed not one familiar soul: "Rome, Rome, eternal Rome." And he grew shy before his own lonely being, and afraid, because he was deeply moved, although he knew that no one was there watching him. All the same, he turned around and hurried down toward the Spanish Steps." (from Jenny) The protagonist is a promising young artist, Jenny Winge, who tries to compromise between love and artistic goals. Jenny leaves her indolent fiancé, Helge Gram, feels attraction to Helge's father, Gert, a failed artist. He leaves his wife, but Jenny doesn't want to marry him. She loses her baby who lives six weeks, and travels to Rome where she commits suicide.
After the success of her books, Undset began to travel. In 1912 she married the Norwegian painter Anders Castus Svarstad at the Norwegian consulate in Antwerp, Belgium. She had met him in Rome, where she had moved after her second novel. Undset returned with Svarstad to Norway. Svarstad continued his career as an artist, spending most of his time in his Oslo studio, Undset published several books, took dutifully care of the home and the children - three of them from his previous marriage. Eventually they separated in 1919, and Undset settled on a farm in Lillehammer in Gudbrandsdal with her daughter, Maren Charlotte, who suffered from mental retardation, and two sons. Her husband and stepchildren become frequent visitors to the farm, called Bjerkebæk.
Before publishing her great historical novels, Undset wrote SPLINTEN AV TROLDSPEILET (1917), which focused on the contradictions between new opportunities for women and their traditional duties. In 1924 she converted to the Roman Catholic faith, and at the same time had her marriage annulled. In her later novels, such as NORSKE HELGNER (1934), religion plays an important role, but without dogmatism. Her own religious developed is seen in GYMNADENIA (1929, The Wild Orchid), DEN BRAENDENDE BUSK (1930, The Burning Bush), and DEN TROFASTE HUSTRU (1936, The Faithful Wife). Undset's relationship with feminism was more ambivalent: her heroines often find fulfillment in home and family rather than in paid work.
Undset's first masterwork from the 1920s is the trilogy Kristin Lavransdottir. It re-created a woman's life in the devout Catholic Norway of the 13th and 14th centuries. In the first volume, The Bridal Wreath, Undset depicted Kristin's passage to adulthood. Kristin is the proud and beautiful daughter of a prosperous landowner, who marries a basically unworthy man, Erlend. "She understood not herself why she was not glad - it was as though she had lain and wept beneath a warm covering, and now must get up in the cold. A month went by - then two, now she was sure that she had been spared this ill-hap - and, empty and chill of soul, she felt yet unhappier than before. In her heart there dawned a little bitterness toward Erlend. Advent drew near, and she had heard neither from or of him; she knew not where he was." The Mistress of Husaby and The Cross dealt with Kristin's marriage, the love and hate relationship with her husband, and her final reckoning with God and succumbing to the Black Death. The novel was followed by a tetralogy, translated into English as The Master of Hestviken (1924-27), also a medieval tale, which earned her the Nobel prize. The protagonist, proud and unyielding Olav, has committed murder - he kills the lover of his fiancée - which he chooses not to confess. In both novel series "the first sin" shadows the protagonists life.
With the exception of MADAME DORTHEA (1939), the only completed volume of a planned trilogy set in the 18th century, Undset's later novels dealt with contemporary society. In most of these works, such as The Wild Orchid (1929) and its sequel The Burning Bush (1930), Undset wove religious themes in the story.
In the 1920s, Undset began to earn a comfortable income from her books. Moreover, she was awarded a lifetime annual author's stipend from the Norwegian goverment. Her Nobel Prize money, 156,000 kroner, Undset gave away. Part of it went to a foundation established to help families with mentally retarded children. Undset sold also her Nobel medal later, giving the money to the relief effort for Finnish children after the outbreak of the Winter War between Finland and the Soviet Union in 1939.
In 1939 Undset lost both her mother and daughter. When Norway was occupied by the Germans in April 1940, Undset joined the Resistance. Her elder son, Anders, was killed during a combat in Gausdal in 1940. A prominent and an outspoken critic of the Nazis, her books were banned in Germany, and Norwegian authorities advised him to flee the country. The Germans occupied Bjerkebæk and chopped up her writing desk.
Undset lived in exile in the United States, in a small apartment in Brooklyn, New York. Her new acquaintances included the novelist Willa Cather, who became a great admirer of her novels. Durig this period, she made lecture tours, which gained much publicity. At the end of the war, Undset returned to Norway, where she was awarded the Grand Cross of the Order of St. Olav in 1947, for her "distinguished literary work and for her service to her country." Undset died in Lillehammer, on June 10, 1949.
Undset combined in her work knowledge of history with a psychological analysis. With the '"domestic epic," a sweeping drama set against a carefully studied social background, she broke a new ground. Undset turned away from the sentimental style of national romanticism and wanted to re-create the realism of the Icelandic sagas and write so vividly, that "everything that seem romantic from here - murder, violence, etc becomes ordinary - comes to life," as the author explained. In her personal life Undset devoted herself to medieval interests - she restored house dating from the year 1000 and dressed in the grown of a Norse matron of the Middle Ages. In Lillehammer Undset lived a reclusive life and refused to open the doors of his house to journalists. Undset's emphasis on women's biological nature, and her view that motherhood is the highest duty a woman can aspire, has been criticized by feminists as reactionary.
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