Bjørnstjerne Martinus Bjørnson, Maria Stuart I Skotland [Mary Stuart in Scotland]

Kathy Rees (Independent Scholar - Europe)

The Literary Encyclopedia. Volume 1.3.5: Norwegian Writing and Culture.
Vol. editors: Kjerstin Moody (Gustavus Adolphus College), Sven Hakon Rossel (Universitat Wien), Herbert Rowland (Purdue University), Jakob Stougaard-Nielsen (University College London), Anja Tröger (University of Edinburgh)

Dates

First circulation or publication 1864

Places

Norway (Country of Origin)

Genres and Modes

Play

Resources

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From 1857 to 1863, Bjørnson was mostly preoccupied with writing plays that conjured the values and the period of Old Norse sagas -

Mellem Slagene

(1857),

Halte-Hulda

(1858),

Kong Sverre

(1861), and his dramatic trilogy,

Sigurd Slembe

(1862). Sturtevant records that Bjørnson attended a performance of Schiller’s

Maria Stuart

(1800) whilst in Hanover in 1862. Schiller’s play is set in the period of Mary Stuart’s period of imprisonment in Fotheringhay Castle and Elizabeth I’s attempts to get rid of her dangerous cousin. Bjørnson shifts the scene to an earlier period in Mary’s life, representing the turbulent eighteen-month period in Scotland from spring 1566 to autumn 1567. H.H. Boyeson remarked that “Bjørnson’s Mary lies half-way between the amorous young tigress of…

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1747 words

Citation: Rees, Kathy. "Maria Stuart I Skotland". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 14 April 2017 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=35898, accessed 23 April 2024.]

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