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Rolf Jacobsen (8 March 1907 – 20 February 1994)[citation needed] was a Norwegian writer.
Jacobsen could be said to be the firstmodernist writer inNorway. Jacobsen's career as a writer spanned more than fifty years. He is one ofScandinavia’s most distinguished poets, who launched poetic modernism in Norway with his first book,Jord og jern in 1933. Jacobsen's work has been translated into over twenty languages. The central theme in his work is the balance between nature and technology – he was called "the Green Poet" in Norwegian literature.[1]
Rolf Jacobsen was born inOslo (then called Kristiania), as the son of Martin Julius Jacobsen (1865–1944), who had completed both medical and dental school, and Marie (Nielsen) Jacobsen (1880–1953) a nurse. At the age of six he moved with his family toÅsnes, where Martin Jacobsen had obtained a post as a schooldentist. Rolf was educated by his mother, who had completed one year of teacher's training. In 1920 he moved to Oslo and entered a private school. During these years his uncle, who was a railway engineer, looked after him. Jacobson continued his studies at theUniversity of Oslo for five years without graduating. In 1927 he served in the Norwegian army for six weeks.[2]
From 1937 to 1939 he was a board member of HedmarkLabour Party.[3]
Jacobsen'sJord og jern, written infree verse, introduced the urban world, racing cars, airplanes, and electrical turbines. Because of the choice of his subjects Jacobsen's work was connected to Marinetti andFuturism, but his view was all but romantic. He did not share the Futurists' euphoria over modern inventions, the beauty of "a roaring motorcar, which runs like a machine-gun," but saw the relationship between machines and human civilization as more complex. Jacobsen's diverse literary and other artistic influences included thePoetic Edda,Karel Čapek's playR.U.R., andCarl Sandburg's poetry. The title of the collection also suggests a cyclic relationship between nature and technology.[4]
In 1934 Jacobsen returned to Åsnes to take care of his father. He had joined asocialist intellectual group,Clarté, and in Åsnes he became a member of theLabor Party Leadership forHedmark County. In Åsnes, Jacobsen worked for the daily newspaperKongsvinger Arbeiderblad, which was supported by Labor. Jacobsen's second collection of poems,Vrimmel (1935), revealed his underlying dismay at modern civilization. Jacobsen rejectedMarinetti'smanifesto, "We wish to glory war...", but predicted the ominous emergence of the gas masks and machine guns. AfterVrimmel, Jacobsen was silent as a poet for 16 years.
During theOccupation of Norway by Nazi Germany (1940–1945), Jacobsen signed and published inKongsvinger Arbeiderbladeditorials that supported the German occupiers. He was also a member of theNorwegian National Socialist Party. After the liberation of Norway at the end ofWorld War II, Jacobsen was convicted of treason and sentenced to three and a half years at hard labor.[5]
After his internment, Jacobsen settled atAbelsethgården in the city ofHamar. He worked as a bookseller for ten years, and then as a journalist and night editor for the newspaperHamar Stifstidende. In 1950 he converted toRoman Catholicism, and in 1951, Jacobsen published his third collection of poems,Fjerntog. The poems were traditional in form. In this work and inHemmelig liv (1954), Jacobsen expressed his troubled compassion for the world around him. A new theme was the rough and lonely Norwegian scenery.[6]
Jacobsen often expressed ironically his doubts abouttechnology, and praised the blessings of little joys. Sometimes he used humor, sometimes his poems had hymnlike solemnity. In Hamar, Jacobsen lived in an old wooden house nearLake Mjøsa and the railroad. These surroundings he also described in his poems. Jacobsen's later books includePass for dørene – dørene lukkes (1972),Pusteøvelse (1975), andTenk på noe annet (1979).[7]
Jacobsen was engaged for a time to Elisabeth Wiborg, daughter of authorJulli Wiborg.[5] In 1940 Jacobsen married Petra Tendø (1912–1983); they had two sons; Trond Tendø Jacobsen and Bjørn Tendø Jacobsen. While his parents' marriage did not succeed, Jacobsen's own marriage was harmonious. After his wife's death, in his last book,Nattåpent (1985), Jacobsen published tender and mournful poems about their life together: "Whoever loves for years / hasn't lived in vain."He died in 1994 and was buried at Hamar kirkegård inHamar.[citation needed]
In the course of his long career, Jacobsen received many honors, among them membership in theNorwegian Academy for Language and Literature, theNorwegian Critics Prize for Literature (1960), theDoubloug Prize (1968), theAschehoug Prize (1986) and theSwedish Academy Nordic Prize ("little Nobel") in 1989.
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