by Prof. Stanton Cawley

A short time ago I delivered a lecture in Phillips Brooks House in Cambridge before the American-Scandinavian Forum on "The Greatest American Poet: Stephan G. Stephansson."¹ Dr. Rognvaldur Petursson² was kind enough to suggest that I print this lecture in Timarit, but I was obliged to decline his invitation because I felt that my presentation of the subject, intended for an audience most of the members of which knew literally nothing of the man, would be quite unsuitable for a circle of readers who have the most compelling motives of racial pride and national consciousness to know as much as possible about him. I decided therefore to recast my lecture notes in the form of an essay addressed directly to the readers of Timarit. Conscious as I am of the presumption involved in my present task, I am yet encouraged by the reflection that it may be of some interest to learn the viewpoint of an outsider who is at least qualified by a very deep admiration for the poet and an enthusiasm for the subject.

Professor Sigurður Nordal has said that we know more about the anonymous author of the Völuspá in the Elder Edda than about any other Scandinavian man before 1100, with the single exception of Egil Skallagrimsson,³ though our information is derived solely from his poem. Similarly, I feel that I know Stephan, though I never met him in the flesh. I have read a good many of his poems, and I have devoured everything about him in the way of biography and criticism that I could lay my hands on. I have had the privilege of meeting men who knew him well —Professor Ágúst Bjarnason, ⁴ Baldur Sveinsson, ⁵ Sira Kjartan Helgason⁶ —and I have had the unforgettable experience of sitting across the table from another great Icelandic poet, Einar Benediktsson,⁷ in a hotel in Reykjavik in 1927, a few weeks before Stephan's death in Alberta. And I understand him better for having devoted many years of my life to the study of Old Icelandic literature. The admirers of the poet will await with keen interest the publication of his letters which are to appear under the editorship of Dr. Rognvaldur Petursson, and will hope for an authoritative full-length biography at some future time from the same competent hands.

I first heard Stephan's name on my first visit to Iceland in the summer of 1927, now more than ten years ago. I thought at the lime that I knew a good deal about Old Icelandic literature, but I was very ignorant about living authors, and I tried to repair this deficiency by talking with most of the people whom I met, and whom I found very willing to enlighten my ignorance. Matthias Jochumsson⁸ was no longer among the living, but Einar Benediktsson and Stephan G. Stephansson were still active, and I discovered that while there was general unanimity in assigning the first rank to Egil Skallagrimsson, each of the previously mentioned men had his advocates among my informants for the second place. (Only Sira Kjartan Helgason, the gentlest of men, characteristically declined to enter into any discussion of comparative merits. "Eg vil ekki fara i mannjofnud" he said.)⁹ Had I been anywhere but in Iceland, I should have felt skeptical about claims to such high distinction made for a Canadian farmer who had never had any formal schooling.

I bought Andvokur, but other pressing concerns kept me from occupying myself with the poems to any great extent in the following years. When I was asked by the Forum to speak there on a Scandinavian subject, I turned various themes over in my mind before deciding; I am thankful that I chose to speak on Stephan, and that the necessity of preparing my lecture gave me for the first time an opportunity to read his works thoroughly and thoughtfully.

Before the Forum I defended my viewpoint, announced in the title, and I began by saying that no doubt my colleagues at Harvard who were specialists in American literature would differ with me, but that I had the obvious advantage in any such debate of being able to read their authors, whereas they could not read mine. Sigurdur Nordal calls Stephan "the greatest poet in the British colonies," Professor Watson Kirkconnell¹⁰ hails him as "Canada's leading poet," and I certainly consider him greater than Poe, Whitman, or even Emerson, who I suppose would be led into the field against him by my above-mentioned colleagues.

Let me say in the first place that I do not find Stephan's style, so far as my knowledge goes, obscure and difficult, adjectives which his critics are almost unanimous in applying to him. It seems to me that he is like all truly great poets, whose works live long after them, in the fact that the form suits the content, and that hence a profound philosophy of life is expressed in deep and impressive language, in striking images drawn from a powerful and many-sided fancy, with the oracular quality of the productions of a true seer. For my feeling, he has a visionary quality which can only be compared with that of the Voluspa itself. Agust Bjarnason has emphasized his distinction as a lyric poet—certainly nothing could be more appealing than who is all too weary¹¹ —and as a poet of nature— his grandiose pictures of the towering Rockies not far from his home have seldom been surpassed by any poet anywhere. There is a charm equal to that of the famous introductory chapter of Bjornson's Arne in Hermit Mountain,¹² with the same poetic personification of the forces of Nature, and the deep ethical implication is brought cut with similar climactic effect in the concluding lines. "Variety" is the word I should choose to describe his works. It has been said that only one string is lacking to his lyre; the great domain of erotic poetry he has not made his. There is a good reason for this; he was a happily married man, and it is unhappy love which usually produces the finest erotic poetry. Yet he thoroughly appreciates such a figure as Thormod Coalbrow's Poet,¹³ and his poem Curly is remarkable for true and tender feeling. And it may be that the masculine spirit which makes him abhor all sentimentality, a trait which the Icelanders share with the Anglo-Saxons, and which has left us with so meager a heritage of love-poetry from the ancient literature of the North, has something to do with this lack in him. To be sure, he did not have to fear, as his ancestors did, that he would be killed by the aggrieved male relatives of any young woman to whom he addressed his verses.

Ágúst Bjarnason rightly emphasizes Stephan's merits as a satirist. It is here that he shows his noblest qualities, the chief Germanic virtues of courage and loyalty. He was fearless in attacking wrong wherever he might find it, and was no respecter of persons where an ethical principle was involved. The longer one lives, the more one is struck by the fear of otherwise admirable men to breast the tide of popular opinion. Few could say with Stephan

There's no need to ponder that ¹⁴
Thus my answer truly;
I'm a farmer, on my hat
Sun and rain fall duly.

Though a neighbor's sensitive,
Small indeed the loss is;
States of weather never give
Heed to human causes.

Nor have I in all my life
Ever cared to labor
In the fight for place,
or strife For the people's favor.

He could address bitter words of reproof to Iceland, as well as to England, but his wrath was inspired in each case by a fervent love and loyalty. He felt toward Iceland as Ibsen did toward Norway:

And yet thou wast kinder to many than to me

but in spite of all his final word is

Whate'er thou, my fatherland, hearest of me
Shall add to thy glory—I truly loved thee!

His hatred of hypocrisy and sentimentality, the saeva indignatio of the great satirist which inspired Juvenal, and after him Swift, appears best of all in The Manslaughter Code,¹⁵ and especially in The Truce,¹⁶ one of the few great poems inspired by the cataclysm of the World War. He shrinks from no extreme of crass realism to denounce this greatest crime against humanity. The notorious novel written by a German soldier, Im Westen Nichts Neues, seems childish in comparison with his flaming denunciation of the unspeakable horrors of modern warfare. The peace societies could not do better than to commission Professor Kirkconnell to translate in full, without expurgation, this thin little volume which appeared in 1920 with a sympathetic foreword by Gudmundur Finnbogason.

Stephan is filled with wrathful contempt for the spiritual leaders on both sides who betrayed their high calling by joining in the chorus of jingoistic ravings:

. . . But perhaps the peace-tongues of your people
Were not silenced thus, your bards not tongue-tied?

They deceived the hopes of both our peoples,
Our best poets. They had sung for many
Years of concord, peace on earth, forbearance,
Being Christians. But they fell to roaring
Battle-songs, each in his own key, loudly,
With the booming of the first shot fired,
Till each mud-patch in the wide world echoed
With the uproar. Then the aged war-bards
Who had always raised their single voices
In falsetto, screaming praise of battle,
Now came near to falling into silence,
With such ravings, as it seemed, delighted.

A terrible prophecy, which has been all too completely fulfilled, is contained in the following lines:

It is true, we fancied in our folly
World-peace founded, we who grow decrepit,
Lacking strength to think of it the longer.
Where is Youth now? Youth, which ought to welcome
The more distant prospect, where the valiant?
Killed I It lies here on the field of battle!
Checked the nearest future, given over
To the hands of cowards, selfish scoundrels.
Thus the peace will be a peace of weaklings—
If 'tis won—a peace of wasted chances
For the rule of war itself among us.
At this price our children buy their concord.

. . . Shall perchance the end of human culture
Be destruction through its own inventions?
Will men set their wits against each other
Till they're caught in toils of human weaving,
All cut down despairing of the conquest,
Forced to save themselves from all the burden
Of their wit, now weary of destruction?

... I have turned my mind to one faint comfort
Sometimes—this: if such a murderous frenzy
Slew a member of each household living
In the world—a son and brother, or a
Husband dear, and grief for the departed
Broke through every door, and took its station
All unwelcome, never to be banished—
Sympathy and reconciliation
Might at last come in the total shipwreck!
Strongest tongue of truth is still empiric.

. . . Most we pity those who die in battle,
Die and fall, and have to suffer shortest.
All the hate and misery surviving
Should be tenfold sorer to be pitied.

The fate of the few individuals who have resisted the universal madness moves the poet to passionate pity:

What has been the fate of those few leaders
Who refused to stultify their credo,
Those who honored peace, and would not shrink from
Truth in peril? One of them is murdered,
For the same cause slandered and confounded
Is the second in his proper party,
And the third, alone, bereft of reason,
Stumbles on the grave's brink, persecuted.
E'en the Roman, ruler of the people,
Challenges the bullies: Ecce homo!

This reminiscence of the crucified Christ is paralleled Goethe's words in Faust:

Die wenigen, die was davon erkannt,
Die töricht gnug ihr volles Herz nicht wahrten,
Dem Pöbel ihr Gefühl, ihr Schauen offenbarten,
Hat man von je gekreuzigt und verbrannt.

The Swedish poet Runeberg, with whom Stephan had much in common, glorified martial valor and selfless patriotism in his poem Molnets Broder. It is interesting to note how Stephan goes beyond him, and, evidently consciously, glorifies the finer courage of the pacifist who dies for his faith. As Runeberg had parodied Tegner's Karl XII in his bitterly satirical Konungen, composed in the same meter, so Stephan writes The Truce in the meter of Molnets Broder. The episode of the farmer boy in The Truce¹⁷ is a conscious imitation of Runeberg's tale of the waif who died for his native land, but in a spirit diametrically opposed to Runeberg's. The Swedish poet has given classic expression to the sentiment of dulce et decorum est pro patria mori. The fallen hero's betrothed speaks the words which the poet himself chooses as a motto for the whole poem:

Mer an leva, fann jag, var att alska,
Mer an alska ar att do som denne.

Stephan denies this flatly; above the love of fatherland he places the highest command of our nature, the love of all mankind.

Gudmundur Fridjonsson,¹⁸ in his essay on Stephan, expresses regret that the poet's circumstances compelled him to spend most of his life in exhausting manual labor for his daily bread, and assumes that this had a hampering effect upon his poetry. Sira Kjartan told me that Stephan was "worn out" after a long life of unremitting toil. But may it not be that this very thing brought out the best that was in his character? We have his own word for it that he preferred the struggle of life to a carefree existence, and the sweetness of the evening rest after the labors of the day inspired one of his most beautiful poems. I would not give much for the man who does not feel the tears spring to his eyes when he sees the picture of Stephan's house in the second volume of Andvokur,—not tears of pity far from it, but tears of pride that the human spirit in its highest manifestations can rise above material circumstances, can make them fall into their rightful place of unimportant accessories in the thrilling adventure which men call life.

The Norwegian writer Hans E. Kinck says in one of his prefaces that he has refused to compromise with his art by adapting his language to the convenience of foreign translators. No doubt Stephan felt as he did, but it is a vast pity that the Anglo-Saxon world should be deprived of his message. I could wish that one day the adjective "Stephanic" (mjog Stephanst, Agust Bjarnason) might be as meaningful to readers of English as "Byronic" is today.

As the manuscript of this essay wings its way through the air in a machine like those which are at this moment being used in Europe and in Asia to kill and maim defenseless men, women and children, the American nation is celebrating the birthday of the greatest statesman this continent has yet produced: Abraham Lincoln, "the first American." Stephan G. Stephansson is the one poet of the first rank who has lived in the Western World. The two men are alike in the hard conditions of their youth and in the deathless achievement of their latter years. The Illinois rail-splitter and the Alberta pioneer are brothers in the spirit.

My friend and teacher Sigurdur Nordal once gave me an excellent characterization of the Sagas of Icelanders: "There is such pure metal in them." This judgment applies with equal force to Stephan G. The highest praise, and that which would have pleased him most, I have reserved to the last: hann var forn i skapi og skorungur mikill.¹⁹

F. STANTON CAWLEY - Harvard University

1. Stefan GudSmundsson Stefanssonar was born on October 3, 1853, at a farm named Kirkjuholl in the district of Skagafjordur on the north coast of Iceland. It is now abandoned, like the three other farms on which he lived before he migrated to America in 1873, at the age of twenty; his friend, Baldur Sveinsson, gives a moving account of the poet's visit to his birthplace forty-four years later. On the paternal side, through his father, Gudmundur Stefansson, he was related to the provost of the diocese of Ho1ar in Northern Iceland, and, more closely, to the poet, Benedikt Grondal the Younger, son of Sveinbjorn Egilsson, translator of Homer and author of Lexicon Poeticum Anliqnae Linguae Septentrionalis. His mother's name was Gudbjorg Hannesdottir. Landing at Quebec with his parents, he worked first as a farm-hand near Milwaukee, and then pioneered in Shawano County, Wisconsin, and after 1880 in Pembina County, North Dakota. In Wisconsin he married Helga Jonsdottir, by whom he had five sons (two died) and three daughters. Finally, in 1889, he accompanied a party of pioneers to Alberta, eight miles north of Calgary. The little village of Markerville grew up later about three miles from Stephan's farm. Professor Kirkconnell writes: "With this district he identified himself for the rest of his life. He came to it a man of thirty-six, in the prime of his strength, with a family of little ones about his knees. Here, too, he died on August 10, 1927, a white-haired veteran of seventy-four, with a rich life-record behind him. He was one of the first organizers of the MarkerviUe school-district; he took an active part in every constructive community enterprise; and he contributed generously out of his poverty in aid of every good cause. He considered himself categorically a Canadian, but in his heart he linked up that allegiance with an unfailing affection for the far-off island of his birth.

"As to appearance, he was five feet seven inches in height, slender in build but very rugged and wiry. His eyes were a deep Nordic blue, very lustrous and very piercing, but the black hair of his earlier years indicated that blending of Celtic blood with the Scandinavian which tends to differentiate the typical Icelander from his Norwegian cousin. Stephansson wore a heavy moustache but no beard; his countenance was lean and lined; and wrinkles of good nature lurked at the corners of his eyes and mouth."

His collected poems were published in five volumes under the title Andvokur (Sleepless Nights): I-III, Reykjavik, 1909-10, iv-v, Winnipeg, 1923. The expenses of publication were met by thirty-four friends in Canada and the United States. In 1917 he visited Iceland at the invitation of the government and the Young People's League, and on his tour of the island was received everywhere like a king.

Professor Richard Beck published a brief characterization of the poet in the American Scandinavian Review, XVII (July, 1929), 424-425.

2. Dr. Petursson is President of the Icelandic National League and editor of Its Annual. As literary executor of Stephan G. Stephansson, he will soon bring out the poet's letters in two volumes, and has in his hands sufficient additional material to bring the total of the collected verse to over 2000 octavo pages, beside a volume of prose sketches, essays, and short stories.

3. Egil Skallagrimsson (c. 900-983), viking and poet. The hero of Egil's Saga done into English by E. R. Eddison, Cambridge University Press, 1930. See Halvdan Koht, The Old Norse Sagas, The American-Scandinavian Foundation [1931].

4. Dr. Agust H. Bjarnason, Professor of Philosophy and Dean of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences in the University of Iceland, author of numerous books and articles. His wife is the daughter of J6n (5lafsson, poet and journalist, who spent some years in America as editor of Icelandic newspapers.

5. Baldur Sveinsson was a journalist on the staff of Visir, newspaper of Reykjavik. He published a sympathetic and informative biographical article on Stephan in the periodical Idunn, Vol. vm (1923) pp. 4-21.

6. Sira Kjartan Helgason, pastor of Hruni in Southern Iceland, a man of noble character, charming manners, and deep learning, who was my hospitable host in the summer of 1927. His one journey abroad was a visit to the Icelandic settlements in America, when he sailed on an Icelandic steamer from Reykjavik direct to New York, returning by the same route.

7. Einar Benediktsson, born in 1864, stands head and shoulders above all other living Icelandic poets. He was graduated as a student of law at the University of Copenhagen in 1892, engaged in journalism in Reykjavik, then followed his profession in the capital and was syslumadur (sysselmand) of one of the southern districts from 1904 to 1907. Later he spent many years abroad; he told me he had been in Cambridge as the guest of Mr. Basil King. He excels particularly in descriptive poetry on native and foreign scenes, in a style remarkable for depth and originality.

8. Sira Matthias Jochumsson (1835-1920), a pastor of the Lutheran National Church of Iceland. "Sira Matthfas was the chief poet of the Icelanders for half a century and wrote obituary poems for two generations. None of our poets has ever been so admired during his lifetime, yet his works are still far from being justly appreciated and understood. They are great in quantity and uneven in quality, and almost inexhaustible in wealth of ideas and bold experimentation. He is a remarkable example of the man who is independent of all schools and movements, at once devout and free-thinking, a cosmopolitan and a root-grown Icelander, carrying vividly in his mind the whole history of his people and yet hearing the grass grow around him. His power of sympathy was so great that it may be said that his memorial poems are as various as the men he celebrated, yet they all bear the unmistakable marks of his genius." Sigurdur Nordal, Islezk Lestrarbok, p. 246.

9. Eg vil ekki fara i mannjofnud— I will not engage in a comparison of men. Such "man-likenings" in the sagas are often decided by an appeal to the ultima ratio.

10. Watson Kirkconnell, Professor of Latin in Wesley College, University of Manitoba, has published various books and articles on poetry and comparative literature, translated poems from many languages, and written a volume of first-rate original verse, The Tide of Life. His essay on Canada's Leading Poet, Stephan G. Stephansson {1SS3-1027), University of Toronto Quarterly, v (January, 1936), 263-277, contains discriminating criticism and masterly renderings of Stephan's verses.

11. Who is all too weary—liver er ollt of uppgefinn.

12. Hermit Mountain—Fjallid Einbui.

13. Thormod Coalbrow's Poet— Kolbrunarskald, killed fighting for King Olaf the Saint at Stiklestad in 1030. He was so called from a poem he made in praise of the lady Kolbrun. His story is told in the Fostbradra saga (Saga of the Foster-brothers, translated as The Story of Thormod in Origines Ishindictie, II, 673 ff.).

14. There's no need to ponder that—Ekki parf I pad ad sja, from a fragmentary poem written to a friend who had questioned whether the poet would be bold enough to print certain opinions he had written in a letter.

15. The Manslaughter Code—Vigslodi, a collection of outspoken poems on the World War.

16. The Truce—Vopnahle, written in 1916. A truce for burying the dead has been declared between two contending armies, evidently the British and the German. Two disillusioned soldiers meet in No Man's Land and discuss at length the issues of the war and their own resentment at having been cheated and exploited by their leaders. In the dialogue of the first passage, the German speaks first, the Englishman second.

17. The episode of the farmer boy relates how he was persecuted and reviled as a coward for refusing to do military service. Later he is compelled to act as a guide for troops of his country who are pursuing an enemy patrol. He purposely leads his countrymen astray, thus saving the lives of the enemy soldiers, and is shot as a traitor.

18. Gutdmundur Fridjónsson (born in 1869), poet, novelist, writer of short stories, essayist and critic. The father of a large family, he had to struggle for many years against poverty, hardship, and misunderstanding, but has fought his way to fame and honor in his native land.

19. hann var forn I skapi og skorungur mikitt—he was ancient in spirit and a great hero. Skorungur defies translation; it includes the qualities of heroism imposing outer appearance, resoluteness, fortitude, energy, high-mindedness

Scandinavian Studies and Notes, Vol. XV, 1938-1939.

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