Poetry
The Trumpet of Nordland
Nordlands Trompet
Petter Dass · 1739
Synopsis
The poem describes in rhymed verse Nordland, the long coastal province of northern Norway. It first gives the overall picture: the weather, the birds and the animals, the Sami, fishing, which keeps the country alive, and the fish trade. It then moves from one district to another, depicting the landscapes, the people and their trades. According to Britannica, the tone is familiar and often humorous, and the metre brisk, because the text addresses the common people.
Context
The poem was written in the last decades of the seventeenth century, between 1678 and 1700 according to Britannica, but was not published until 1739, more than thirty years after the death of its author. It is regarded as his principal work. Theodore Jorgenson, a professor of Norwegian literature, translated it into English for the St. Olaf College Press in 1954; the Petter Dass Museum and the Helgeland Museum reissued this translation in 2015.
Who it is for
A long poem in the written Danish of its time, the written language shared by Denmark and Norway, with no French translation, readable in English in Theodore Jorgenson's version.
Prizes and reception
The author's principal work, reissued several times in the twentieth century and translated into English in 1954.
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