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

create such a compact mass as, for example, France. Indeed, in that sense not even our
literature will become one and without division, evidently to express everything that is
alive in the nation, so necessarily what is characteristic and independent in the three
Nordic people must also find its expression in their common literature, which accordingly
must indeed manifest itself as a unity, but in addition with a certain obvious articulation.
Accordingly in this respect the Norwegians' effort to emancipate itself completely from
Danish literature deserves recognition, and the Danish are completely wrong to condemn
the thought of developing the recognizable Norwegian written language, as a phantom of
a narrow-minded Norwegian fanaticism. In spite of all Danish protests, it is already
recognized more and more by the language, if something is written south or north of
Kattegat, and we need only to get a Norwegian dictionary according to Professor
Holmboe's plan 10 in order that it will show how much we have that is remarkable in our
vocabulary. And yet are yonder Norwegian Norwegians so far from acting against the
Scandinavian Idea's interests, that they are rather to be regarded as its necessary
forerunners. A liberation must come first, before a free affiliation can take place; only
when Norway truly owns something, can it have something to deposit in the common
fund. Therefore, much seems to suggest that Scandinavian literature has in common with
the ancient Greek to be divided into dialects; but this did not prevent the latter [language]
from being great and immortal and perhaps the most well-rounded which has yet existed.
10 See the periodical Nor, 3rd volume's 1st part; Morgenbladet no. 193.
III.
452