Georg Johannesen (22 February 1931 – 24 December 2005) was a

Norwegian Norwegian, Norwayan, or Norsk may refer to: *Something of, from, or related to Norway, a country in northwestern Europe * Norwegians, both a nation and an ethnic group native to Norway * Demographics of Norway *The Norwegian language, including ...

author and professor at the

University of Bergen The University of Bergen ( no, Universitetet i Bergen, ) is a research-intensive state university located in Bergen, Norway. As of 2019, the university has over 4,000 employees and 18,000 students. It was established by an act of parliament in 194 ...

Background

He was born in

Bergen Bergen (), historically Bjørgvin, is a city and municipality in Vestland county on the west coast of Norway. , its population is roughly 285,900. Bergen is the second-largest city in Norway. The municipality covers and is on the peninsula o ...

, Norway. He was the son of Knut Johan Johannesen (1900–1979) and Ingeborg Malene Olsdatter Skaalevik (1902–1981). Johannesen graduated artium at Bergen Cathedral School in 1949. He studied history, English and Norwegian at

University of Oslo The University of Oslo ( no, Universitetet i Oslo; la, Universitas Osloensis) is a public research university located in Oslo, Norway. It is the highest ranked and oldest university in Norway. It is consistently ranked among the top universit ...

and took his master's degree in Literature History in 1960. He wrote his dissertation ''Vårmotivet hos Olaf Bull'' on the poetry of Olaf Bull (1883-1933). From 1960-63, he was a high school lecturer and 1964-69 a freelance author and writer. In 1969 he joined the University of Bergen as assistant teacher at the Nordic Institute. He was a senior lecturer in Scandinavian literature from 1977, associate professor in 1981-86 and in 1996 he was appointed professor in rhetoric. He drowned during 2005 while on vacation in

Egypt Egypt ( ar, مصر , ), officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, is a transcontinental country spanning the northeast corner of Africa and southwest corner of Asia via a land bridge formed by the Sinai Peninsula. It is bordered by the Medit ...

Writing career

Georg Johannesen's entered the literary scene with a novel, ''Høst i mars'' ( (1957), a tender love story with a tragic denouement about romance in the face of bourgeois prejudice. The novel was followed by three collections of poetry. The first of these, ''Dikt 1959'' (1959), deals with temporal subjects. The second collection, ''Ars moriendi'' (1965), is structured around a rigid formal arrangement inspired by the

Seven deadly sins The seven deadly sins, also known as the capital vices or cardinal sins, is a grouping and classification of vices within Christian teachings. Although they are not directly mentioned in the Bible, there are parallels with the seven things ...

Christianity Christianity is an Abrahamic monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus of Nazareth. It is the world's largest and most widespread religion with roughly 2.38 billion followers representing one-third of the global pop ...

. The last, '' Nye dikt'' (1966) is more politically-driven. Johannesen stirred controversy in 1967 with his play ''Kassandra''. The play was attacked for its blasphemous content and caused an uproar when it was first performed at the

Det Norske Teatret Det Norske Teatret ( en, Norwegian Theater)Moe, Jens. 2011. ''My America: The Culture of Giving''. Bloomington, IN: iUniverse, p. 133. is a theatre in Oslo. The theatre was founded in 1912, after an initiative from Hulda Garborg and Edvard Drabl ...

. The play shows Johannesen's genius of creating a socially critical work. Johannesen's love for paradox and delivering political messages in his work continued in ''Tredje kongebok'' (1978), '' Johannes' bok'' (1978) and ''Simons bok'' (1980). These works were laden with paradox and irony, literary devices Johannesen often worked with. These works were allegorical, shedding light on some of contemporary Norway's problems. The Norwegian drilling for offshore oil was presented in a satirical manner in the novel ''Mongstad'' (1989), which Johannesen published under the pseudonym Kathy Johns. All his writing shows an interest in the power that

language Language is a structured system of communication. The structure of a language is its grammar and the free components are its vocabulary. Languages are the primary means by which humans communicate, and may be conveyed through a variety of ...

has to enshroud true meaning. Johannesen's most important task was to unveil language. His essays show a certain fondness for

paradox A paradox is a logically self-contradictory statement or a statement that runs contrary to one's expectation. It is a statement that, despite apparently valid reasoning from true premises, leads to a seemingly self-contradictory or a logically u ...

. Both his plays and his poems bear evidence of inspiration from the work of German dramatist and poet, Bertolt Brecht (1898–1956).

Awards

Gyldendal's Endowment Gyldendal's Endowment was a literature prize which was awarded in the period 1934–1995 by the Norwegian publisher Gyldendal Norsk Forlag. The prize was awarded to significant authors, regardless of which publisher the author was associated w ...

- 1966 *Diktartavla - 1997 * Cappelen Prize - 1999 *

Halldis Moren Vesaas Prize The Halldis Moren Vesaas Prize ()Halldis Moren Vesaas (1907—1995) was a Norwegian author, poet and translator. is a Norwegian literary prize which is awarded annually to a Norwegian for lyric or other poetry, which through the quality and magnitu ...

- 1999 * Norwegian Academy Prize in memory of Thorleif Dahl - 2000

References

1931 births 2005 deaths Writers from Bergen People educated at the Bergen Cathedral School University of Oslo alumni Academic staff of the University of Bergen Norwegian male writers Norwegian essayists Norwegian dramatists and playwrights 20th-century Norwegian novelists Rhetoric theorists Deaths by drowning 20th-century essayists {{Norway-writer-stub