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

a whole is rather separate from, is indeed purely alien to our "folk" poetry, such as it
manifests itself, principally in stories and legends, but also in individual metric, lyric-
epic forms. Still, however artificial and refined a country's literature may be, even so,
if it is genuine, it has always preserved a fundamental tone in its folk poetry;--among
us everyone sounds his own tone, and where the sounds unite, it has often been as
disharmony.
Even less than the life of the people, which so far has had one poet, has our
mountain scenery found a person who was open to it and also possessed of a mind,
who was able to liberate its poetry from fossilization, in which it lies spellbound. In
this respect--I know it is a frightful heresy, but it must here come out!--I have a rash
hope for Mr. Welhaven, a hope several of his poems have not alone for me awakened,
but for me still only partly satisfied.
For all those who acknowledge this defect of our "art" poetry--certainly the
worst it can have--every means to alleviate the same must be of the utmost importance,
and as long as there do not appear some, or even just one poetic spirit with the superior
ability, that by its own power it can immerse itself in the life of the people and there
liberate and resurrect with itself the abundance of poetry it possesses, so long must the
present means be sought, of reaching poetic persons with folk poems, in order that the
breath of these (which in truth can be compared with the awakening and enlivening
spring wind) can stimulate them to productions written in the people's spirit, or to
receptivity to the same.
Of course, I do not by any means want to have the designation "poetic person"
taken in the narrowest sense of those--God knows how many--poet-names that, all
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