Bjoernson's peasant novels, which are a
continuation of Grundtvig and Blicher, are, by their harmony and their
peaceable relations to all that is, an outcome of love of common sense;
they have the same anti-Byronic stamp as the School of Common Sense. The
movement comes to us ten years later. But Bjoernson has simultaneously
something of Romanticism and something of Realism. We have not men to
place separately in the various frames.
III. _Realistic Art_. There is so far only an attempt at a
realistic art.
Thus, in Bjoernson's _Arne_ and _Sigurd Slembe_. Note also an
attempt in Bergsoee's clumsy use of realistic features, and in his
seeking after effect. Richardt corresponds in our lyric art as an artist
in language to the poets of the _Parnasse_, while Heiberg's
philosophy and most of his poetry may be included in the School of
Common Sense. Broechner's _Ideal Realism_ forms the transitional
stage to the philosophy of Reality. Ibsen's attack upon the existing
state of things corresponds to realism in the French drama. He is Dumas
on Northern soil. In the _Love Comedy_, as a scoffer he is
inharmonious. In _Peer Gynt_, he continues in the moralising
tendency with an inclination to coarse and brutal realistic effects
(relations with Anitra).
In Germany we find ourselves at the second stage still, sinking deeper
and deeper into dialect and popular subjects (from Auerbach to Claus
Groth and Fritz Reuter).
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