NATURE

Let's play with Vaar over the Earth!

And into the great Music of Nature

a Sound murmurs from my Heart,

A Thank You for every Spring I got.

It throbs like hoof stomps in the chest inside,

a joy from God to me –

the biggest that anyone has found and anyone will find.

("Let's play with spring above the earth")

The natural space is important in Hamsun's writing.

Nature is most often depicted in contrast to a cultural sphere, be it the trading post, the city, or America. Nature is a place of strong emotional impressions, as is the case in Pan (1894), or of reflection and tranquility, as is the case with the parsonage forest in Mysteries (1892).

Hamsun's descriptions of nature have idyllic overtones, but the idyll is often threatened. Hamsun has revealed a pantheistic attitude to life in several of his poems and novels, and in both Pan and Markens grøde (1917) nature is endowed with a divine presence. In Hamsun's only collection of poems, Det vilde Kor (1904), a number of the poems revolve around the desire and experience of closeness between man and nature, including "Skjærgårdsø" and "Gravested".