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In them the poet scourges, without mercy, the one-sided, narrow-minded patriotism of his time, and exposes, in striking and unmistakable words, the hollowness and shortcomings of the Wergeland party. Welhaven points out, with emphasis, that he is not only going to espouse the cause of good taste, which his adversary has outraged, but that he is also about to discuss problems of general interest.
It is not surprising that this invective against the tendencies of the youthful bard over whose rhapsodies all Norway was growing crazy with praise should arrest universal attention, although in the Twilight Welhaven adroitly avoided mentioning Wergeland by name.
At an early age he had become a power in literature, and a political power as well. From 1831 to 1835 he was subjected to severe satirical attacks by the author Welhaven and others, and later his style became improved in every respect. His popularity, however, decreased as his poetry improved, and in 1840 he had become a great poet but had no political influence.
The champion of the conservatives was Welhaven, a polished writer of singular charm and much force, philosophical in temper, whose graceful verse and acute criticism upheld by both precept and practice the traditional standards of culture. Each of these men had his followers, who proved in many cases more zealous than their leaders.
John Sebastian Cammermeyer Welhaven was born in Bergen in 1807, entered the university in 1825, became a Lector in 1840, and afterward Professor of Philosophy. "His refined esthetic nature," says Fr.
Possessed of these prudential and educational appreciations, it is not surprising that Bergen has sent forth some eminent representatives in science, art, and literature. Among these we recall the names of Ole Bull, the famous musician; Ludwig Holberg, the accomplished traveller; Johann Welhaven, the Norse poet; and J. C. C. Dahl, the celebrated painter.
Welhaven endured the rationalist and republican rhetoric of Wergeland as long as he could, although with growing exasperation, until the rhapsodical author of Creation, transgressing all moderation, accused those who held reasonable views in literature and politics of being traitors. Then it became necessary to deal with this raw and local parody of Victor Hugo.
The fight was inaugurated by a preliminary literary skirmish, which was, at the outset, limited to the university students; but it gradually assumed an increasingly bitter character, both parties growing more and more exasperated. Welhaven published a pamphlet, Om Henrik Wergelands Digtekunst og Poesie, in which he mercilessly exposed the weak sides of his adversary's poetry.
The lovers of Wergeland were told that politics and brandy were their only pleasures, but those of Welhaven were warned that they were known to be fed with bribes from Copenhagen. Meanwhile Welhaven himself, in successive publications, calmly analyzed the writings of his antagonist, and proved them to be "in complete rebellion against sound thought and the laws of beauty."
Welhaven, who had moved in the circle of the friends of Rahbek, instinctively referred every literary problem to the tribunal of Danish taste. He saw that with the enthusiasm with which the poetry of Wergeland was received in Norway was connected a suspicion of mental discipline, a growing worship of the peasant and a hatred and scorn of Denmark, with all of which he had no sympathy.
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