Bemærkninger til nogle nyere sprog- og litteraturvidenskabelige afhandlinger om N. F. S. Grundtvig (af Helge Toldberg, Emil Frederiksen og Henning Højrup)

Abstract

Some Linguistic and Literary Studies of Grundtvig.

Review by Gustav Albeck.

In 1942 Helge Toldberg won the Gold Medal of Copenhagen University for his prize essay on the subject set by the University: “ Grundtvig’s Vocabulary in his Literary Work (up to 1824)”. The war hindered the publication of the thesis (nearly 700 pages in length) as a whole; but important extracts, often supplemented by new researches, are now available in a series of separate essays. Toldberg’s special merit lies, in my opinion, in the great use he makes of the enormous mass of unpublished material to be found in the Grundtvig Archives in the Royal Library at Copenhagen. This material presents many hitherto unsolved problems, not least with regard to the dating of the great number of preliminary drafts and uncompleted drafts. In the essay “ Problems of Dating Grundtvig’s Manuscripts” (Nordisk tidskrift för bok- och biblioteksväsen, XXXIII (1946), P. 107-120) Toldberg provides research students with some “ first aid” which, critically applied, can be of great value. Not all the criteria have shown themselves to be completely valid, but on the main points Toldberg seems to be right.

A work of central importance is Toldberg’s book, “ Grundtvig as a Philologist” (Teologiske Studier, Nr. 8, G. E. C. Gad, København, 1946), a thorough investigation of the philological form of Grundtvig’s work, linking together his observations on language and his putting of them into practice in translations and original work. The introductory chapter seeks to make clear the psychological presuppositions of Grundtvig’s language, and draws a distinction (more sharply than is justified, in my opinion) between the aural and the visual factors in his powerful faculty of association. On the other hand, Chapter 2 is of lasting value; it establishes the close connection between Grundtvig’s extensive reading and his philological work, while the author succeeds (on the basis of booksellers’ accounts, auction sale lists and private unprinted catalogues) in defining the extent of Grundtvig’s collection of books on philology. Very fruitful, too, is Toldberg’s examination of the numerous Danish proverbs noted down by Grundtvig. Grundtvig drew from 3 sources of folk speech: his native district in South Sjælland, the district where he went to school (Jutland) and the island of Langeland where he was a private tutor from 1805 to 1808. To this is added literary material, especially from Peder Laale and Peder Syv. But a really comprehensive investigation of the signifiance of Danish proverbs in relation to Grundtvig’s literary work would demand a special monograph.

The chapter on Grundtvig as a translator contains many interesting points of detail, but is lacking in synthesis. By distinguishing to a greater extent between preliminary work and the final result it would be possible to separate the contribution of the philologist from that of the poet. Some pages of Grundtvig’s first translation of the saga of Knud the Holy (Knytlinga) which have been preserved, compared with Grundtvig’s printed translation (in “ Dannevirke” ) show how Grundtvig first carefully tries to make the text clear to himself from a purely philological standpoint in order afterwards to reproduce it in a Danish version with a popular (“ folkelig” ) stamp. A fact that has escaped his notice is that the same tendency finds expression in his translation of the old Latin lament dating from 1329. This must have been written early in 1814, and influenced by the impression made on him by Norway’s separation from Denmark, but was never published.

In the essay “ Stages in Grundtvig’s Authorship” (Acta philologica scandinavica, XIX, (1947), P. 143—178) Toldberg tries to set forth five stages of development in Grundtvig’s literary language before, in the period around 1824, it appears with what Toldberg calls Grundtvig’s “ classic tone” . The boundaries between the various stages, however, seem very vague. Much, for instance, points to Grundtvig’s having already found his “ classic tone” in the lyric as early as around 1810! The interesting problem of whether Grundtvig found his poetic style before his prose style and whether his prose is influenced by his lyric style, is still unsolved.

In 1948 Emil Frederiksen produced a little collection of essays entitled “The Young Grundtvig” . It contains, among other things, some fine chapters on “ The Tone of Grundtvig’s Earliest Works” and “ Grundtvig’s Sermons at Udby”, together with an extremely interesting analysis of Grundtvig’s youthful love for the beautiful lady of a Langeland manor, Constance Leth. On the basis of a penetrating analysis of Grundtvig’s diaries and literary productions from his period as a tutor, the author puts forward the thesis that Grundtvig’s love for Fru Constance was in essentials an outer form, into which he pressed his inner development which was conditioned by other factors. But the thesis is hardly tenable. Grundtvig destroyed the parts of his diary which described his arrival at Egeløkke and his first summer at the manor-house—91 pages in all. Thus the sources of a definite solution of the problem have vanished. But earlier and later sources indicate that the young tutor on his arrival at Egeløkke in the early spring of 1805 was particularly susceptible to female charm, and that Grundtvig during his first months on Langeland had read a good deal more into Fru Constance’s smiles and handclasps than he had any right to do. Everything indicates that Grundtvig’s awakening awareness of the hopelessness of the situation was extremely painful. In this distress Romanticism came to his help. His love was the starting-point for the spiritual awakening he experienced on Langeland.

Starting from the oft-quoted saying of Grundtvig: “ First the human being, and then the Christian”, Henning Høirup, D. D., has written a very interesting study of Grundtvig and Holberg (Vartovbogen, 1947). Grundtvig’s knowledge of and admiration for this great writer of the Danish Age of Enlightenment were much greater than is generally believed. Høirup gives a number of examples of this, and shows that Grundtvig must have known Holberg’s “Moral Thoughts”, in which he says, “ Children must be made human beings before they become Christians” (lib. I, epigr. 5). Høirup skilfully shows the differences between the two sayings, differences which are based not alone on the contemporary background but also on the different mentality of the two writers, and in this way he succeeds in throwing light on what Grundtvig really meant by these much-disputed words.