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The Life of the Soul: Vitalism and the Invisible in the Norwegian Fin De Siècle

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The Life of the Soul: Vitalism and the Invisible in the Norwegian Fin De Siècle The Life of the Soul: Vitalism and the Invisible in the Norwegian Fin de Siècle By Benjamin Arthur Bigelow A dissertation submitted in partial satisfaction of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Scandinavian Languages and Literatures and the Designated Emphasis in Film Studies in the Graduate Division of the University of California, Berkeley Committee in charge: Professor Mark Sandberg, Chair Professor Linda H. Rugg Professor Karin Sanders Professor Barbara Spackman Summer 2017 The Life of the Soul: Vitalism and the Invisible in the Norwegian Fin de Siècle © 2017 by Benjamin Arthur Bigelow Abstract The Life of the Soul: Vitalism and the Invisible in the Norwegian Fin de Siècle by Benjamin Arthur Bigelow Doctor of Philosophy in Scandinavian Languages and Literatures Designated Emphasis in Film Studies University of California, Berkeley Professor Mark Sandberg, Chair This dissertation examines the Norwegian literary culture of the 1890s, a decade often described with labels such as nyromantikken [neo-romanticism] and decadence. Rather than perpetuating the conventional literary-historical narrative that the foremost literature of the 1890s represented an absolute break with literary naturalism, I show that naturalist materialism persisted, even as the literary optic was shifted from the realm of social realism to a representation of the inner forces at work within the modern individual. Combined with materialism, this shift in focus from the external to the internal realm resulted in the crucial concept of the embodied soul, a seemingly contradictory combination of ideal and the material that I argue was characteristic of this literary generation. Looking forward to the form of literary and artistic vitalism that became central in Scandinavian culture after the turn of the century, I show how this tendency toward vitalism actually began with the depiction of the material soul in the literature of the 1890s. Using three canonical authors as case studies, this dissertation examines how and why scientific materialism became combined with a vitalist interest in invisible natural forces toward the end of the century. Knut Hamsun, who was a brash young literary provocateur at the outset of the decade, depicted the individual soul as an embodied phenomenon that manifested itself in basic physiological functions, as well as in the momentary workings of the individual mind. Hamsun also made sensory perception a topic of debate, critiquing the way in which vision was commonly deployed in ways that implied objectivity, disembodiment, and distance; hearing, on the other hand, Hamsun depicted as an immediate and subjective mode that adhered much more closely to his preference for vital embodiment over detached objectivism. Arne Garborg, a much more well-established author and intellectual at the time, focused on the conflicts between science and religion that arose around 1890, and showed how a new kind of idealism informed all manner of cultural pursuits. Spiritualism was of particular interest for Garborg, in part because of the way in which it reflected a contemporary tendency toward “re-enchantment.” Sigbjørn 1 Obstfelder also focused on the relationship between religion and science, and showed how the scientific expansion of vision—achieved through technologies such as microscopes, telescopes, and the X-ray—was redirecting religious energies into a more scientifically- based search for the invisible forces that shape the universe and populate the earth with life. Obstfelder depicted a kind of vitalist “conversion narrative,” revealing how scientific naturalism was a necessary precursor to the shifting terms of religious devotion in the modern era, from the transcendent power of God to the immanent, life-giving force of the sun. In all of these cases, vitalism grew out of a fixation on the invisible. Since previously invisible phenomena had become “visible” through the mediation of modern visual technologies, there was a broad sense that there were material forces at work beyond the visual horizon. Scientific naturalism was thus a necessary precursor to vitalism, because it provided a sense that there were undiscovered natural forces at work all around us and within us. Vitalism simultaneously critiqued the disembodiment and detachment that scientific vision was predicated upon, however, and instead advocated for a fully embodied mode of investigating and experiencing the vital force. 2 Acknowledgements This dissertation is the product of several years of solitary work—thinking, researching, and writing by myself in libraries, archives, campus offices, and at home. It would have been impossible to carry out, however, without the generosity and help of many individuals and organizations. I am grateful for the generous support I have received from the Department of Scandinavian at UC Berkeley over the years. This support has come in various forms: Graduate Student Instructor and Graduate Student Research appointments, as well as the Fernström Fellowship, which financed a crucial research trip to Oslo in 2014. I would also like to thank the UC Berkeley Graduate Division, which financed my last year of dissertation work with the Dissertation Completion Fellowship. Without all of this support, or the encouragement and practical help offered by the faculty and staff of the Department of Scandinavian, this project would have been impossible. I also wish to express my gratitude to the Institutt for lingvistiske og nordiske studier (ILN) at the University of Oslo for hosting me as a visiting scholar from 2015 to 2017. This extended stay in Norway was an invaluable experience for my own scholarly work, as well as a transformative cultural experience for my wife and daughters. Special thanks are due to Professors Elisabeth Oxfeldt and Ståle Dingstad, who generously encouraged my visit from the beginning and helped with pragmatic tasks like securing office space, in addition to including me in the life of the department. Thanks also to the faculty and graduate students at ILN, who gave me the opportunity to present an early draft of my first chapter and gave helpful feedback and encouragement. This stay in Oslo would not have been possible without the support of the Birgit Baldwin Fellowship in Scandinavian Studies, which financed my first year in Norway. I am grateful to the Society for the Advancement of Scandinavian Study and the Baldwin Fellowship Committee—Christopher Oscarson, Troy Storfjell, and Merrill Kaplan—for awarding me this fellowship. I am also thankful to the American Scandinavian Foundation for supporting my research in Norway with an American Scandinavian Foundation Fellowship. My dissertation committee has provided both encouragement and thoughtful feedback from the conception of this project in 2013. Linda Rugg has always been an outstanding advisor, teacher, and discussion partner, as well as an incisive reader who never fails to find stimulating new connections that I have missed. Karin Sanders has been a warm and reassuring mentor who championed my work from the start, while also challenging me to rethink some of my early assumptions about nineteenth-century literary history. Barbara Spackman offered a valuable non-Scandinavian perspective, and I am grateful for her insightful feedback and encouragement. My entire committee also deserves thanks for their patience and flexibility, especially when it came to the final weeks before the deadline and time became critical. i My dissertation committee chair, Mark Sandberg, has been the ideal mentor and professor. He has been an exceptional intellectual model whose style of scholarship and rhetorical precision have been an inspiration. Mark has a gift for asking just the right questions to help improve any argument, most often by pushing me away from the obvious and easy answers and toward the less obvious insights. I am grateful for his exacting standards, his extraordinary grasp of scholarly argument, and his willingness to make himself available for an in-person (or, more often, Skpe-based) discussion of my project. These conversations always pushed my project forward, inspired new ways of thinking about the intellectual and historical problems I was wrestling with, and helped me proceed with a more disciplined and nuanced argument than what I had started with. Finally, I am deeply grateful for the unwavering support and patience of my wife, Sophie. She has been a wonderful partner, friend, and support throughout this long process. Without her companionship and help, completing this dissertation would have been an impossible task, and these years in graduate school would have been much less enjoyable. I am also grateful for my daughters, Lucy and Clio, who have provided a much needed sense of perspective as well as a welcome diversion from my work. ii CHAPTER ONE Vital Materialism and the Embodied Soul in the Norwegian Fin de Siècle By the late nineteenth century, scientific materialism had become a dominant ontological framework in mainstream Scandinavian intellectual discourse. In practical terms, this meant that claims about the natural world were judged against their adherence to the accepted laws of nature. The only kinds of phenomena that could be broadly accepted as real were physical phenomena that could be empirically observed, recorded, and measured. But this general acceptance of a physicalist worldview did not mean that metaphysical concepts like thought, mind, spirit, or soul disappeared completely or were relegated to the intellectual
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