Bjørnstjerne Martinus Bjørnson, Mindre Fortellinger: En Livsgåte [Small Stories: A Problem of Life]

Kathy Rees (Independent Scholar - Europe)

The Literary Encyclopedia. Volume 1.3.5: Norwegian Writing and Culture.
Vol. editors: Sven Hakon Rossel (Universitat Wien), Herbert Rowland (Purdue University), Jakob Stougaard-Nielsen (University College London), Anja Tröger (University of Edinburgh)

Dates

First circulation or publication 1869

Places

Norway (Country of Origin)

Genres and Modes

Story

Resources

This short story opens in a mountain setting, where a tense scene unfolds between two lovers, Botolf and Aasta. The couple met during an ocean voyage: Aasta’s ship ran against that of Botolf, and she fell in love with him when he took command of the crisis. Botolf has become suspicious because Aasta will not divulge her past, but he knows that during her recent journey from America, she had been very fearful of a certain foreign skipper. Her refusal to explain the reason for this makes Botolf mistrustful: “I am too proud to be the keeper of something I do not know – and which may perhaps belong to another!” (187). The tension between them mounts until, without warning, Aasta runs past him, and hurls herself over a…

Please log in to consult the article in its entirety. If you are a member (student of staff) of a subscribing institution (see List), you should be able to access the LE on campus directly (without the need to log in), and off-campus either via the institutional log in we offer, or via your institution's remote access facilities, or by creating a personal user account with your institutional email address. If you are not a member of a subscribing institution, you will need to purchase a personal subscription. For more information on how to subscribe as an individual user, please see under Individual Subcriptions.

353 words

Citation: Rees, Kathy. "Mindre Fortellinger: En Livsgåte". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 22 April 2017 [https://staging.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=35904, accessed 25 November 2024.]

Save this article