It has inspired the people with renewed courage, it has
turned the national life into fresh channels, and it has revolutionized
national politics.
To be sure all this was not the result of the idyllic little tale which
marked the beginning of his career. But this little tale, although no
trace of what the Germans call "tendency" is to be found in it, is still
significant as being the poet's first indirect manifesto, and as such
distinctly foreshadowing the path which he has since followed.
First, in its purely literary aspect, "Synnoeve Solbakken" was strikingly
novel. The author did not, as his predecessors had done, view the people
from the exalted pedestal of superior culture; not as a subject for
benevolent preaching and charitable condescension, but as a concrete
phenomenon, whose _raison d'etre_ was as absolute and indisputable as
that of the _bourgeoisie_ or the bureaucracy itself. He depicted their
soul-struggles and the incidents of their daily life with a loving
minuteness and a vivid realism hitherto unequalled in the literature of
the North.
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