The Wreath (Kristin Lavransdatter #1)(3)
The early fourteenth century, which Sigrid Undset chose for her narrative, was a time of transition in Norway, when the Church and the Crown were solidifying their power. It was a time with few major historical figures, which allowed Undset more freedom to create her own. It was also a time of relative calm in Norway—a period between wars and before the onset of the Black Death in 1349, which would wipe out at least half the population of the country (and which plays a significant part in the third volume of Undset’s story).
By this time the Catholic Church had become firmly established in Norway, and it played an increasingly powerful role in daily life. Like the majority of her peers, Sigrid Undset had been brought up Lutheran, although she received little formal religious instruction from her parents. And yet from a young age she had been drawn to the teachings of the Catholic Church, both intellectually and spiritually. In Kristin Lavransdatter she was able to explore her religious ideas and examine how the Catholic faith directly affected the lives of ordinary individuals.
In the early fourteenth century the entire population of Norway numbered less than 500,000 and the country was almost completely rural, with few outside influences reaching the villages in remote mountain valleys. Daily life revolved not only around religious rituals and obligations, but around the family and extended kin group. The rules for leading a good life were clearly delineated and solidly entrenched. Those who strayed or disobeyed were outlawed or exiled from the community. To lose the approval of the Church and your kinsmen was the worst imaginable fate; to be cast out was a punishment just short of death.
This was the society that Undset chose for her story of an intelligent but headstrong young woman, properly brought up and fully aware of the expectations of her parents and kinsmen, a young woman well versed in the strictures of the Church. And yet Kristin decides to defy both her parents and her priest for the sake of passion and love. She listens to her heart rather than to all those around her. Kristin’s act of rebellion might be viewed as foolhardy or courageous, but in either case, she has to suffer the consequences of her actions. She must learn to take responsibility for her own fate.
Sigrid Undset later explained that Kristin’s greatest sin is not the fact that she succumbs to her sexual desires and yields to the amorous demands of her impetuous suitor before they are properly married. Of much greater import is Kristin’s decision to thwart her father’s wishes, to deny the traditions of her ancestors, and to defy the Church; her worst sin is that of pride. The scholar Marlene Ciklamini notes that “in medieval times the most egregious sin was superbia, or pride, setting oneself up as the arbiter of things human and divine, or, to express it another way, loving oneself more than God.” Kristin’s constant struggle to integrate a sense of spiritual humility into her strong and passionate nature underlies much of the dramatic tension in all three volumes of the novel.
The Wreath was published in the fall of 1920, and the critics gave it their highest praise. Gunnar Heiberg, whose intervention had prompted the publication of Undset’s first novel, compared The Wreath to the works of Homer, saying it demonstrated the same “power, clarity, and depth.”
The novel quickly won acclaim in other countries as well. When it first appeared in English, the Times of London called Undset “a creator of characters on the grand scale.” The New York Times pronounced the novel “a well-written, well-constructed, strong and dramatic romance, founded upon those emotions and impulses which belong not to any especial time or country, but to all humanity.” And the critic Edwin Bjorkman wrote in The New York Times Book Review that Undset’s “supreme achievement is in the appealing humanity and fallibility of her characters.”
A second volume, Husfrue (The Wife), followed in 1921, and the final volume, Korset (The Cross), was published in 1922.
The success of her epic trilogy brought Sigrid Undset further financial security, for which she was grateful. In addition to receiving income from book royalties, she was awarded a lifetime annual author’s stipend from the Norwegian government. Success also brought fame, however, and all the intrusions this entailed. Undset had always been an exceedingly private person who zealously sheltered her children and personal life from the public eye. She had little patience for journalists and seldom gave interviews. But she could also be extremely warmhearted and generous; she responded to all the letters sent to her, and she often sent money to the steady stream of desperate people begging for help from the famous author.
With the publication of Undset’s second great medieval work in 1925 and 1927—a tetralogy entitled Olav Audunssen (published in English as The Master of Hestviken)—her status as one of Norway’s greatest writers was confirmed, and her place in world literature was unquestionably assured.
In 1928, Sigrid Undset was awarded the highest honor for her work, the Nobel Prize for Literature. It was given to her principally for “her powerful pictures of Northern life in medieval times.” At the age of forty-six she was one of the youngest recipients, and she was only the third woman to be honored with the prize.
At the time of the award, Kristin Lavransdatter had been translated into many languages and was widely known around the world. In Germany alone, there were 250,000 copies in print.
According to all accounts, Undset took the news of her award with admirable calm, although she did buy herself an elegant new dress for the occasion. At the award ceremony in Stockholm, P?r Hallstr?m, author and member of the Swedish Academy, gave the presentation speech. He praised Undset’s early novels, in which she depicted modern women “sympathetically but with merciless truthfulness ... and conveyed the evolution of their destinies with the most implacable logic.” He then paid tribute to her brilliant recreation of medieval life in Kristin Lavransdatter and The Master of Hestviken, and to her profound insight into the “complex relations between men and women.” Sigrid Undset graciously expressed her thanks for the honor but declined to make a speech, explaining that she was a writer, not a speaker.