exact chronological order. It has been possible to do this
because the plays have either been translated by a single man and issued
close together, as in the case of Hartvig Lassen, or they have appeared
separately from the hands of different translators and at widely
different periods. We come now, however, to a group of translations
which, although the work of different men and published independently
from 1901 to 1912, nevertheless belong together. They are all in
Landsmaal and they represent quite clearly an effort to enrich the
literature of the new dialect with translations from Shakespeare. To do
this successfully would, obviously, be a great gain. The Maalstraevere
would thereby prove the capacity of their tongue for the highest, most
exotic forms of literature. They would give to it, moreover, the
discipline which the translation of foreign classics could not fail to
afford. It was thus a renewal of the missionary spirit of Ivar Aasen.
And behind it all was the defiant feeling that Norwegians should have
Shakespeare in Norwegian, not in Danish or bastard Danish.

The spirit of these translations is obvious enough from the opening
sentence of Madhus' preface to his translation of _Macbeth_:[27]
"I should hardly have ventured to publish this first attempt at a
Norwegian translation of Shakespeare if competent men had not urged me
to do so." It is frankly declared to be the first Norwegian translation
of Shakespeare. Hauge and Lassen, to say nothing of the translator of
1818, are curtly dismissed from Norwegian literature. They belong to
Denmark. This might be true if it were not for the bland assumption
that nothing is really Norwegian except what is written in the dialect
of a particular group of Norwegians. The fundamental error of the
"Maalstraevere" is the inability to comprehend the simple fact that
language has no natural, instinctive connection with race. An American
born in America of Norwegian parents _may_, if his parents are energetic
and circumstances favorable, learn the tongue of his father and mother,
but his natural speech, the medium he uses easily, his real
mother-tongue, will be English. Will it be contended that this American
has lost anything in spiritual power or linguistic facility? Quite the
contrary. The use of Danish in Norway has had the unfortunate effect of
stirring up a bitter war between the two literary languages or the two
dialects of the same language, but it has imposed no bonds