Arne Garborg

Born Jan. 25, 1851, in Time; died Jan. 14, 1924, in Labråten. Norwegian author.

Garborg was a participant in the liberal cultural movement Young Norway, which considered the Norwegian peasant as the basic social strength of the country (articles “On the Blessedness of Illusions” and “In Defense of Folk Tales”). Garborg supported the movement for the national language Landsmaal (the book The Nynorsk Linguistic and National Movement, 1877). He was the author of the realistic novel Peasant Students (1883) on the influence of capitalism on the Norwegian village. In the dramatic lampoon Irreconcilables (1888) Garborg depicted the struggle of bourgeois figures to obtain ministerial portfolios. The novels At Mother’s (1890) and Tired People (1891) denounce capitalist sharp dealers. He translated the Odyssey into Norwegian (published in 1918). The influence of naturalism is apparent in many works of Garborg. The influence of decadence and mysticism increases in his later works.