Background
His chief collections of poetry are loosely joined cycles dominated by certain basic ideas about the problems of national culture.
Averse as he was to the dominant Dano-Norwegian urban culture, he sought in the folk life of the valleys a counterpoise made up of elements from saga, ballad, and folk tale. His chief concern was the living continuity of his people from ancient times to the present, and he sought to preserve it in rugged, many-faceted New Norse verse, humorous and melancholy in turn, richly varied and original in expression.