cultural resources in henrik ibsen's early environment - Ibsen.net

IV. “Den Skandinaviske Idé” (“The Scandinavian Idea”), by Marcus J.
Monrad.
IBSEN AND SCANDINAVIANISM.
Ibsen was involved in Scandinavianism as early as 1848. We know this because a
poem he wrote in that year, “The Giant Oak Tree,” shows the influence of this movement.
In the Fall of 1844, when the following three-part article appeared in a Christiania
newspaper, Ibsen was working as an apprentice in a pharmacy in Grimstad, and at that
time the pharmacy was also the post office. Newspapers and magazines came to their
subscribers in the mail, and presumably when Ibsen had a spare moment he could read
them. We have no anecdotal evidence that Ibsen read this particular article, but Monrad
was an important intellectual in Norway at that time, and Ibsen’s philosophy teacher
during his year at the university in 1850-51.
Marcus J. Monrad, "Den Skandinaviske Idé." Morgenbladet, nos. 268, 270, 272
(September, 1844).
I.
The thought which as a vague generality is expressed by the term Scandinavian
Unity, and which was first articulated as such by a couple of Danish and Swedish writers,
has recently become very widespread, and has finally had a success even in Norway,
which one could call surprising, considering our countrymen's renowned caution and
reserve. In Denmark and Sweden, as is well known, there are already so-called
Scandinavian Societies, with the goal of working for Scandinavian unity mainly in
literary respects; in Norway, as far as is known, there are still no formal societies with this
purpose; but at present the Norwegian student society must be regarded as a center of the
Scandinavianist movement among us, since on the whole--not without fervent debates--it
has declared itself favorable to the idea, and has been in contact with the Swedish society,
from which it has received gifts of Swedish books, just as it has forwarded to the Swedes
[some] of our literary productions. It was natural that young people, who are the most
437