Gabriel Scott

Gabriel Scott
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Born	Gabriel Scott Jensen (1874-03-08)8 March 1874 Leith, Scotland
Died	Arendal, Norway
Occupation	Poet, novelist, playwright and children's writer
Language	Norwegian
Nationality	Norwegian
Notable works	Tante Pose, Kilden, Det gyldne Evangelium, Fant
Notable awards	Gyldendal's Endowment (1936)
Spouse	Ellen Johansen (1901–1912) Dagmar Marie Jensen (1915–1918) Birgit Gabrielsen (1918–1958)

Gabriel Scott Jensen (8 March 1874 – 9 July 1958), better known by the pen name of Gabriel Scott, was a Norwegian poet, novelist, playwright and children's writer.

Biography

Gabriel Scott was born in Leith, United Kingdom, where his father Svend Holst Jensen (1846–1908) was a seafaring priest and initially considered naming his firstborn Martin Luther. Instead, he was given the first names Gabriel Scott, Gabriel after the Archangel, Scott in honour of both Scotland and the author Walter Scott. When Gabriel Scott Jensen made his debut as a writer in 1894, his father recommended that he call himself simply Gabriel Scott, as this shorter name would be more easily recognised.

Gabriel Scott's mother was the composer and author Caroline Schytte Jensen (1848–1935), who published over 200 children's songs, including Tre søte småbarn med øyne blå, for which her husband wrote the lyrics. The melody is based on a Scottish folk tune from the time they lived in Scotland. She was the granddaughter of Andreas Faye, and her family descended from the Swedish baron Johan Skradesius Schytte, tutor to Gustavus Adolphus. Scott's father, Svend Holst, was the son of the merchant Anthoni Jensen, who was the richest man in Drammen before he went bankrupt. Scott's father graduated as a preseterist and was unusually well versed in languages. He not only mastered English and German, but also Hungarian and Norse. His work for Hungary's national poet Sándor Petőfi earned him the honourable title of "Hungary's Bjørnstjerne Bjørnson".

In 1883, the family moved to the vicarage at Høvåg between Lillesand and Kristiansand, and at the age of ten, Scott planted a spruce tree outside the house. As an older man, he said: "The tree is apparently getting bad inside, and I am anxious to see who will be first in the ground!" In 1887, he moved to Kristiansand to study, even though his family lived in Høvåg. Scott attended three years of real school and six months at the cathedral school (gymnasium) before leaving school. He never had very good grades, but was active in the school newspaper Æblet at the time when the principal of the cathedral school cancelled the students' memorial service for Bjørnstjerne Bjørnson's death, which resulted in a "whistle concert" in protest.

In his late teens, he wrote a number of poems that were published in local newspapers. He was apprenticed as a blacksmith at the Kolbjørnsvik mechanical workshop, and in 1894 he graduated from Skiensfjord Mechanical College. His practical education never quite got the better of him, and he dabbled in inventions such as model aeroplanes, longbows and rat poison. But in 1894 he made his debut with the publication of Poems, and he went on to write poetry, plays, children's books and some short stories.

In the late 1890s, his father was a parish priest in Grimstad, and the young poet lived there for periods of time, which is particularly reflected in his roman à clef Fugl Føniks from 1898. The scandal was complete because people could be recognised in the book, and Scott was forced to move — or flee — to Lillesand. Many felt so injured by the novel that a lawsuit was threatened. In the novel, Grimstad's inhabitants are described as follows: "They are born Pygmies and die Pygmies, that's the story." The press debate surrounding the novel was harsh on Scott, who was labelled a "cuckoo child".

Gabriel Scott visited Knut Hamsun in 1894, when Hamsun lived in Torridalsveien in Lund in order to finish writing Pan. Young Scott wanted to hear Hamsun's opinion on the poems he had written. In 1896 Scott published the poetry collection Dag and the prose books Vester i Skjærene and Aftenrøde – Arkitekt Helmers optegnelser — while Hamsun published a play also called Aftenrøde in 1898.

His 1904 novel Tante Pose ('Aunt Bag') was the basis of the film Tante Pose (1940). In 1905, he wrote the comedy Himmeluret.

Under the pseudonym Finn Fogg, Gabriel Scott wrote southern tales and stories that he occasionally passed off as being told by the original Pider Ro. The stories were published as separate books, but also included as individual stories in anthologies and the like. Three such Pider Ro stories were printed in the 1912 edition of the yearbook Humør.

In 1915 Scott's novel Jernbyrden, historien om Jan Vibe was published, which became his breakthrough, not least thanks to Hamsun's recommendation: "A marvellous book!" Hamsun reviewed the copy sent to him in Aftenposten on 27 November 1915: "The reader gets no unhealthy hiccups from "Spænding", it is not theatre, it is life...Let me be allowed to, Hr. Editor, to refer to this book for the people and the homes...Gabriel Scott has something to offer." Over the next few years, the two authors met occasionally, including in poker games. His most famous book is the novel Kilden eller Brevet om fiskeren Markus ('The Source, or the Letter about Mark the Fisherman'), 1918, a story about the fisherman Mark living a simple life and presenting simple thoughts. In his 1921 book Det gyldne Evangelium (The Golden Gospel), — written in the form of a legend, somewhat reminiscent of Hans Christian Andersen — the main characters are Saint Peter and Our Lord, who are seen wandering and meeting people. His books on the Norwegian travelling people, Fant (1928) and Josefa (1930) became popular, and in 1937 Fant was made into a film by Tancred Ibsen.

Hamsun's biographer Ingar Sletten Kolloen believes that Jernbyrden inspired Hamsun to write Growth of the Soil, which was published in 1917 and won him the Nobel Prize in 1920. One difference between the books is that while Scott depicts the past with action from the Danish period — including material from the story of the sisters Ane and Alet from Øyestad, who were executed by beheading in 1771 for killing several people with fly agaric, a type of arsenic — Hamsun sets the action in his own time. Scott is also more concerned with the individual and charity, while Hamsun is focused on the mercilessness of life. Scott's Jan Vibe appears as a model for Hamsun's Isak Sellanrå, while Isak Sellanrå may have served as a model for the fisherman Markus in Scott's book Kilden from 1918.

Scott apparently only visited Nørholm once. Hamsun was resting at dinner and did not want to be disturbed, but since Marie Hamsun heard that her spouse had risen again, she reported the visit. Hamsun was furious. His wife hid in the barn, and Hamsun also left the house through the kitchen door — without a hat, which never happened. Scott was left to his own devices.

Gabriel Scott was also a prolific and popular children's author, and books such as Sølvfaks, Trip, Trap and Tresko were published in numerous editions over many decades.

He articulated his religious stance in Det gyldne evangelium (The Golden Gospel) with the commandment: "Thou shalt not become a theologian." In his 1927 novel Hyrden, he elaborates in rhyme:

O Lord God, keep my house from theologians and bedbugs.

Scott was awarded the Gyldendal's Endowment in 1936. During the 1930s, he was fundamentally pro-German, publishing articles praising both Vidkun Quisling's National Gathering and Hitler's Germany. This stance was much debated, before, during and after the Second World War. However, before the beginning of the war he had begun to distance himself from the German dictatorship, and during the war he wrote patriotic poetry.

De vergeløse (The Defenceless) was published in 1938 and is about the orphanage children at Flugum Farm. Scott's book is one of Norway's most famous tendensromaner of all time, not least because it was made into a film in 1939, directed by Leif Sinding, who also directed Tante Pose the following year. De vergeløse ran continuously for three months at the Oslo cinemas, and was also a success in the other Nordic countries. De vergeløse received a lot of newspaper coverage in the 1930s. There was great concern that the control of the small private children's homes was so poor. Scott set the story in Hurum, where his mother was from. Scott himself had lived there for a few months with his mother's parents when the family came to Norway from Scotland and were waiting to move to Høvåg. Scott familiarised himself with the ongoing "illiteracy case", in which 24-year-old Ingvar Foss had been sent away as "retarded" on a farm in Hurum from the age of 8, and thus never received schooling. In the spring of 1937, he filed a lawsuit for damages against the farmer, the school board and the municipality. Scott's letter to the publisher Harald Grieg shows that he realised the conditions Foss had grown up in, and that it had shaken him. Morgenbladet and Nationen criticised Scott because there was allegedly no illiteracy in Norway in 1938.

Scott and Vilhelm Krag are now considered southern Norway's most important poets.

Gabriel Scott died in Arendal at the age of 84.

Private life

Gabriel Scott had three younger siblings: Anne Marie Schytte, married to German Oskar Schytte. Together they travelled to Alaska to run a restaurant, but ended up in California; Christian Smith lived in China for many years, and would not settle in Oslo until the city called itself Kristiania again, but eventually returned to Oslo, where he died in 1945; David Faye was the only one born in Høvåg. He was baptised with a bottle of water his father had fetched from the Jordan River. David moved to Chicago, where all traces of him disappeared.

Scott was first married on 17 May 1901 in Kristiania to Ellen Johansen. The marriage was dissolved in 1912. When she died in September 1914, he was left alone with three sons. He remarried in October 1915 to his housekeeper Dagmar Marie Jensen. This marriage ended in divorce in 1918. That same year, Scott married for the third and final time, on 27 September 1918, to Birgit Gabrielsen (1897–1981). At this time he lived in "Maagereiret" on Tromøya outside Arendal, where he remained until his death in 1957.

He was involved in the establishment of the Arendal Pistol Club in 1933. He was awarded the state artist's salary in 1951 following a proposal from Herman Smitt Ingebretsen.

Legacy

Max Tau gave a speech when the statue of Scott was unveiled in Pollen in Arendal on 13 May 1975.

In 1998 Lynor released the record Sør i skjærene – Sanger fra Gabriel Scotts kilder on which Gabriel Scott's poems were set to music by Jon Kleveland, who performed the poems with Siv Justnes.

Markus, the major character in the novel Kilden, was mentioned by Harald V in the King's New Year's speech in 2008.

Works

• Digte (1894; poetry)
• Dag (1895)
• Lillehavns mysterier. Glade historier fra en liden by (1898; under the pen name Finn Fogg)
• Lillehavns mysterier. Glade historier fra en liden by. Bind II (1900; under the pen name Finn Fogg)
• Jagtjournalen (1901)
• Trip, trap, træsko (1902: children's book)
• Siv (1903; poetry collection)
• Tante Pose (1904; tale)
• Det flyvende bord (1905; children's book)
• Pider Ro's historier om hans forunderlige selvoplevelser tillands og tilvands (1905; under the pen name Finn Fogg)
• Himmeluret (1905; commedy)
• Camilla Dyring (1906; novel)
• De tre Lindetrær (1907)
• Sjøpapegøier (1908)
• Hollænder-Jonas (1908; children's book)
• Babels taarn (1910; comedy)
• Gutten i røiken eller en ny bok om Hollænder-Jonas (1910)
• Det spøker (1911)
• Sølvfaks (1912; children's book)
• Sverdliljer (1912; poetry collection)
• Kari Kveldsmat (1913; children's book)
• Jernbyrden; historien om Jan Vibe (1915)
• Enok Rubens levnedsløp (1917)
• Kilden eller Brevet om fiskeren Markus (1918)
• Vindholmens beskrivelse (1919)
• Det gyldne evangelium (1921)
• Emanuel (1922)
• Blaaskjæl (1923; short stories)
• Stien eller Kristofer med kvisten (1925)
• Sven Morgendug (1926)
• Hyrden (1927)
• Fant (1928)
• Josefa (1930; novel)
• Alkejægeren (1933)
• Storebror (1934)
• Helgenen (1936; novel)
• De vergeløse (1939)
• Våren (1940; part 1 of the trilogy En drøm om en drøm)
• Tante Pose (1940)
• Sommeren (1941; part 2 of the trilogy En drøm om en drøm)
• Årringer (1945; poetry)
• Høsten (1947; part 3 of the trilogy En drøm om en drøm)
• Fergemannen (1952; novel)

Translated into English

• "High Hats: A Bit of Parish History," The American-Scandinavian Review, Vol. XV, No. 12 (1927)
• "Nils Punctual and His Clocks." In: Norway's Best Stories (1927)
• The Golden Gospel, a Legend (1928; translated by W. W. Worster)
• Kari. A Story of Kari Supper from Lindeland, Norway (1931; translated by Anvor Barstad; illustrated by Edgar Parin d'Aulaire)

Several of Scott's books have been republished in the last decade, including volumes published under the auspices of the Scott Society.

References

• Beyer, Harald (1956). A History of Norweigian Literature. New York: New York University Press for the American-Scandinavian Foundation.
• Dahl, Truls Erik (1998). Gabriel Scott: et levnetsløp. Fjellhammer: Juni.
• Fløistad, Guttorm (1989). "The Source: Spinoza in the Writings of Gabriel Scott," Studia Spinozana, Vol. V, pp. 185–201.
• Hale, Frederick (1985). "History and Historicist Millenarism in Gabriel Scott's Himmeluret," Scandinavian Studies, Vol. LVII, No. 3, pp. 229–43.
• Hale, Frederick (2006). "The Transcendental Symbolic Christ Figure in Gabriel Scott's Kilden," Scandinavian Studies, Vol. LXXVIII, No. 4, pp. 461–76.
• Hale, Frederick (2007). "Disillusioned Conservative: The Evolution of Gabriel Scott's Political Views," Scandinavian Studies, Vol. LXXIX, No. 3, pp. 295–318.

External linnks

• Gabriel Scott at the Internet Movie Database
• Works by Gabriel Scott at National Library of Norway