Ludvig Holberg, The Founder of Norwegian Literature and an Oxford Student

by S. C. Hammer

During the forty-six years which had passed since the Restoration of 1660, England—as you will remember—had witnessed a period full of political and literary activity, but above all, remarkable for its prodigious advance in the field of science. This progress was, it is true, a matter of European rather than of English concern, but the inquiring spirit and the rationalist desire to get to the bottom of things which were the hallmarks of the age were in no country developed more strikingly than in England. Latin was still the language in which scientific works were written, but the Royal Society had already unfolded its national programme "of bringing all things as near the mathematical plainness as possible, and of preferring the language of artisans, countrymen and merchants to that of wits and scholars."

The extraordinary events of the time also highly appealed to the receptive mind of Holberg. When he arrived at Oxford in the spring of 1706, in the company of his friend, Mr. Brix, England was in the midst of the Spanish War of Succession, of which—as we remember—he had got some experiences on his Dutch journey. During a sojourn of nearly two years, Holberg was a close observer of everything connected with the great war. It was not so easy at that time as during the recent Armageddon to get hold of the historical thread leading up to events and to explain the facts by way of arguments; but he was impressed by the dogged determination of the English in their heavy struggle against Louis XIV., and their unswerving belief in a victorious issue. He himself never doubted that they would win the war, thanks to their splendid resources no less than to the very principles for which they fought. In short, it is the prototype of the world's war by which we are confronted—the Spirit of the West, the representative of the political and intellectual liberty of the future struggling against absolutism and all the reactionary powers of the past.

As a matter of course, Holberg was a staunch pro-ally, and besides this, he was also highly interested in the political events of the day. The Union between England and Scotland which took place during his stay at Oxford, strikes him as one of the most important acts of statesmanship in any age—an event of far-reaching consequences—and he never gets tired of commenting upon it and of subjecting it to new investigations.

I do not presume to think that I can tell you anything new concerning the conditions ruling at this University at the commencement of the eighteenth century, but some brief particulars in connection with Holberg's stay are of interest and importance for a fair understanding of the moulding influence of Oxford upon his character and genius.

Throughout the seventeenth century an increasing number of students from Denmark and Norway had found their way to Oxford, "the most noble theatre and emporium to all good sciences," to quote a contemporary writer. From 1602 to 1683 the famous Liber Peregrinorum, or Admission Index, shows a total of 112 names of Danish and Norwegian origin; during the next twenty years, up to 1708, their number was 60, of which 46 were Danes and 14 were Norwegians. These figures are interesting as an unmistakable proof of the growing intercourse between the Dano-Norwegian monarchy and England, which by this time had commenced to make itself decidedly felt in the field of commerce.

From the commencement of the eighteenth century, London, the famous fire of which in 1666 had given a great impetus to the small timber ports of South-Eastern Norway, became a city of growing importance to our country. During their holidays the Norwegian Oxford students used to spend their time in London, where there was a numerous colony of Danes and Norwegians and a constant influx of seamen and merchants, especially from South Norway. It was not, therefore, altogether by chance that Holberg arrived in England. He sailed, in fact on the westward current of the time.

On their arrival at this University, April 18th, 1706, having covered their way from Gravesend to London, and from London to Oxford on foot, Holberg and his friend soon found out that their finances were at so low an ebb that before they could proceed with their studies they had to provide for their domestic necessities. Fortunately Oxford was no particularly expensive place at that time, £40 a year being sufficient to pull a man through, and Holberg was always very economical, and understood remarkably well the difficult art of making both ends meet. Yet their first months at Oxford were passed under very strained conditions until Mr. Brix succeeded in getting a supply of money from a banker in London. In the meantime, they had raised the necessary funds themselves by giving lessons in music and languages, and it is a characteristic evidence of Holberg's cleverness that, after the departure of his friend, which took place comparatively soon, he managed to study at Magdalen College for more than eighteen months, with no other money than that obtained through his lessons as master of languages and of the flute.

The more you try to sound the marvellous authorship of Holberg the more you feel convinced of the importance of his stay at Oxford. It would require several lectures to trace the way in which his impressions and his experiences of Oxford have moulded him as an historian, as a playwright, as a philosopher and moralist. I can only tell you that he took with him from this place to Copenhagen and to the Dano-Norwegian community not only the conviction of his future mission, but practically the very seeds of what should ripen into one of the richest crops in the field of literature. If Macaulay had known Holberg he would have had to give a somewhat different turn to his famous sentence: "France has been the intermediary between England and Mankind." Holberg visited England twenty-five years before Voltaire and twenty-four years before Montesquieu, and brought back first hand views and impressions, sifted only through the medium of his unbiassed mind.

To put it briefly, Holberg has been the intermediary between England and the North.

At Oxford Holberg planned the work by which he started in literature in 1711: Introduction to the History of the European Kingdoms,[2] containing a remarkable chapter on England and the English from the time of the Romans down to 1702, with quotations from various authors, among them Milton, William Camden, and Lord Clarendon. This work, against which many objections have been raised and, to a certain extent, not unjustly, nevertheless is stamped by the characteristic features of his genius, so familiar to all Holberg students—his original way of thinking, his contempt for all sorts of ostentatious learning blocking the way by irrelevant facts, his plain language—vigorous, manly, with a turn of its own—his sound judgment, and perhaps, above all, the generally fair way in which he arraigns his persons before the tribunal of history.