Background

Jacobsen was born in Oslo on March 8, 1907. His father Martin Julius Jacobsen (1865–1944) was a dentist and his mother Marie (Nielsen) Jacobsen (1880–1953) was a nurse. At the age of six, he moved with his family to Åsnes, where Martin Jacobsen had obtained a post as a school dentist. He was raised for part of his childhood by his uncle, a railway engineer.

Education

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. Jacobson continued his studies at the University of Oslo for five years without graduating. In 1927 he served in the Norwegian army for six weeks.

Career

Jacobsen started his career as the author of song lyrics, under pseudonym Roll Hovre, for composer Thomas Beck, in 1929-1934.

Although Jacobsen’s total production was fairly small, he nevertheless received many honors. He made his debut in 1933 with (he collection of poems "Jord og jem," and "Fjemtog and Hemmeligt liv" are often praised as being some of the richest and the most charming of his collections. Jacobsen’s poems created a bridge from the past to the present, balancing simplicity with rich imagery and reflection. The past may have been Norwegian history and architecture, or it may have been classical Old Greek mythology. Like other Norwegian authors of his time, Jacobsen saw Norway as a country less hurt by industrialism and modem civilization than most other European countries. He felt that Norwegians were closer to nature than many other people and that it was important to turn to nature not only for its variety and beauty but also to anchor humanity’s placement in time and space and to retain its ability to show compassion and humility. Jacobsen’s poems demonstrated an ability to combine different spacial and temporal worlds in a modem medium.

"Jord og jern" “thematized” technology versus Nature, a theme he returned to again and again. In his works, technology was presented as holding potential for both good and evil, progress and destruction. The main feeling, however, was one of skepticism toward technology, a feeling that became progressively stronger later on. "Jord og jern" was written in a rather rhetorical style, reminiscent of the tenth-century Norse poetic Edda and the nineteenth-century “Nordic Renaissance” literature of Bjpmstjerne Bjpmson and Hans Henrik Holm. Jacobsen chose to use alliterative words, written in free verse in constellations in "Jord og jern."

In "Vrimmel," published two years after "Jord og jem," Jacobsen abandoned a heroic tone in favor of the more intimate, low-key themes, that would become a recurring feature of his later work. Tiny details and objects, unnoticed and often invisible, in Jacobsen’s universe, pin-pointed the problems of modem civilization. "In Vrimmel," the ant, like the Greek mythological figure Sisyphus, carried his burden up the mountain in a never-ending struggle, with an environmental twist.

"Hemmeligt liv" is another example of microcosmic focus. The fly, who places a spot on the telescope, causes confusion and bewilderment in (he observatory when the astronomers suddenly see that the constellation called “The Swan” has changed. The confrontations of different worlds, small with large, technology with nature, were often central elements of Jacobsen’s poetry.

Jacobsen’s poems are highly musical in their sensitivity towards sounds, natural as well as man-made. Not only do his poems exhibit a keen sense of sound, but they also employ silence as a carrier of meaning. Jacobsen used silence in his poems to create a feeling of space and openness. In the poem “De store symfoniers tid” from "Hemmeligt liv," the rain and mass communication’s steady stream of sounds are interwoven. The sounds from machines, such as radios and oil cylinders, replace the sounds from the rain and the anthills to the point where we think they are natural. And indeed, Jacobsen concluded, the gasoline-driven cities are part of nature - just moving at another speed, despite their obvious strive to overcome nature.

In the sixteen years between 1935 and 1951, Jacobsen published no poetry. This break was partly related to the Second World War and Jacobsen’s own confused state. Unlike most other contemporary Norwegian authors, Jacobsen did not experience the complications caused by the war as inspiration and material for writing literature. Like fellow Norwegian author Knut Hamsun, Jacobsen was arrested for treason when the war ended. After his release, Jacobsen moved to Hamar, about sixty miles northeast of Oslo. He worked as a journalist and editor at Kongsvinger Stiftstidende, in Kongsvinger, Norway (1935-1945). He was a book salesman in Hamar, Norway (1949-1959) and a journalist at Hamar Stiftstidende, in Hamar, Norway (1959-1971).

Jacobsen’s first publication after his trial and imprisonment was in 1951, with his third collection of poems titled "Fjemtog." As in "Jord og jern," the powerful Norwegian mountains and the North Sea are celebrated, but with the religious feeling that became an integral part of Jacobsen’s later work. His ordeals following the war led Jacobsen to embrace the Catholic faith. Beginning with Fjerntog, church imagery, God’s existence, peace, and compassion pervaded Jacobsen’s poetry. In the 1960s and 1970s, writings such as "Stillheten efterpa" showed a critique against the dominant consumer-oriented society: how human values are subordinate to the market and how it results in fear and loneliness.

Nattcipent was the best-selling collection of poems in Norway in the entire post-World War II period. A collection of poems reflecting on love and death, Nattcipent comprises a retrospective selection of poems from twelve of Jacobsen’s earlier collections, beginning with "Jord og jern." In "Nattcipent," Jacobsen wrote about his deep and sincere love for his late wife Petra, who died in 1985. The poems describe his loneliness and longing for her. For the first time in his writings, he chose to put his and his wife’s erotic life together into literary form. In "Nattcipent" loving another person, in life and after death, becomes a celebration of life and poetry.

Regardless of Jacobsen’s political activities, before and during the war, his literature never had any political or social content or intent - except for his environmental engagement. Jacobsen’s ecological focus was expressed as a deep concern for nature from a humanistic and religious perspective. Like the Danish author Hans Christian Andersen, Jacobsen’s critique was communicated through a subtle mixture of charm and irony, conveying an innocence that never became naive and simplistic.

Achievements

• Rolf Jacobsen is considered a pioneer of Norwegian lyrical modernism and a remarkable innovator. He was a Norwegian poet of international reputation, and his works have been translated into more than thirty languages. However, it was not until 1973, when Samlede saw publication, that Jacobsen finally gained recognition as one of the foremost Scandinavian lyricists of the twentieth century. In 1974, the well-known American poet Robert Bly published his translation of twenty poems by Jacobsen, and in 1960, poems by Jacobsen were included in Hans Magnus Enzenberger’s international anthology of modem verse. Museum der Modemen Poesie. Jacobsen was the only Norwegian poet included in the anthology. Rolf Jacobsen received the Criticism Award in 1960 for "Letter to the Light." His poetry has been rewritten in twenty languages.

Works

More photos

• book

  • North in the World: Selected Poems of Rolf Jacobsen

    (North in the World presents 121 poems by Rolf Jacobsen (1...)

    2015
  • The Roads Have Come to an End Now 2001
  • The Silence Afterwards 1986

Religion

In 1950 Jacobsen converted to Roman Catholicism.

Politics

In 1934 Jacobsen returned to Åsnes to take care of his father. He had joined a socialist intellectual group, Clarté, and in Åsnes from 1937 to 1939 Jacobsen was a board member of the Hedmark Labour Party.

During the Occupation of Norway by Nazi Germany, (1940-1945) Jacobsen signed and published in Kongsvinger Arbeiderblad editorials that supported the German occupiers. He was also a member of the Norwegian National Socialist Party. After the liberation of Norway at the end of World War II, Jacobsen was convicted of treason and sentenced to three and a half years at hard labor.

Views

The central theme in Jacobsen's work is the balance between nature and technology - he was called "the Green Poet" in Norwegian literature.

Jacobsen often expressed ironically his doubts about technology and praised the blessings of little joys. Sometimes he used humor, sometimes his poems had hymnlike solemnity.

Jacobsen’s poems have often been likened to painting because of their strong pictorial quality. His best poems have a translucency, where layers of different images interact with each other and interweave, creating poetry of great depth. Jacobsen wrote in free verse, without rhymes or traditional stanzas, and he was one of the first Norwegian poets to use material that conventionally was considered highly “unpoetic,” such as cranes, neon lights, and car wheels.

Influences on Jacobsen’s work included Marinetti and Futurism, the Edcla, and playwright Carel Capek. The dangers of twentieth-century society’s submission to technology were central themes throughout his literary work. Jacobsen himself said that his inspiration mainly came from the Norwegian poets Wergeland, Welhaven, and Aasen, the Norwegian prosaist Sigrid Undset, the Danish writer Johannes V. Jensen, and the American Carl Sandburg. In a Scandinavian context, he felt closer to more modem Danish literature for its lighthearted feeling, than to the somewhat heavy symbolic verse of his Swedish contemporaries.

Membership

Jacobsen was a member of the Norwegian Academy of Language and Literature.

• 

  Norwegian Academy of Language and Literature , Norway

Interests

• Writers

  Filippo Tommaso Marinetti, Carel Capek, Henrik Wergeland, Johan Sebastian Welhaven, Ivar Aasen, Sigrid Undset, Johannes V. Jensen, Carl Sandburg

Connections

In 1940 Jacobsen married Petra Tendø (1912–1983), they had two sons Trond Aasmund Tendø Jacobsen and Bjørn T 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 (1995), Jacobsen published tender and mournful poems about their life together: "Whoever loves for years / hasn't lived in vain."

Father:

Martin Julius Jacobsen

(1865–1944)

Mother:

Marie (Nielsen) Jacobsen

(1880–1953)

Spouse:

Petra Tendø

(1912–1983)

Son:

Trond Aasmund Tendø Jacobsen

Son:

Bjørn T Tendø Jacobsen

References

• Contemporary Authors New Revision Series, Vol. 194
  2010