The new life of nordahl Grieg’s poem “To the young”

Abstract

The article reviews the change in the public reception of the poem “To the Young” by the Norwegian poet Nordahl Grieg (1902–1943). This poem is a remarkable example of the Scandinavian ”war footing” literature. Nordahl Grieg is most known for his political poetry. The poem “To the Young” was written on request of the Student Union leader who was concerned by the growing popularity of the Norwegian national socialistic party Nasjonal samling among the students. The article gives the analysis of the poem based on the use of linguistic means that are characteristic of propaganda texts. As a result, one can conclude that the poem has a clear agitation character. Such political poems are usually actual in a certain historical context, but they lose their significance as time passes. The same thing happened to a considerable degree with the poem “To the Young” although it was set to music by the Danish composer Otto Mortensen in 1952 and became a popular song. However, after the terrorist attacks on the 22nd of July, 2011 the poems by Nordahl Grieg gained a new significance. On this day, 77 people were killed, most of them were teenagers. This terrorist attack was regarded as a political act aimed to destroy the essential values of the Norwegian nation. The song “To the Young” that encourages to confront the violence with creation and respect for people became an ideal instrument to unite the nation, express the mourning for the dead and proclaim the humanistic ideas. Moreover, one can see by analyzing the leaders’ speeches on the mourning ceremonies, that they do not only quote Grieg’s poetry directly, but they also form their speeches using the same linguistic means that were used in Grieg’s poem.