Emotional Experience and Microhistory

A Life Story of a Destitute Pauper Poet in the 19th Century

Sigurður Gylfi Magnússon

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2020
• Print ISBN: 9780367359966
• eBook ISBN: 9781000055719
• Edition: 1
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: 19th Century History
• Index: History

Emotional Experience and Microhistory explores the life and death of Magnús Hj. Magnússon through his diary, poetry and other writing, showing how best to use the methods of microhistory to address complicated historical situations.

The book deals with the many faces of microhistory and applies it's methodology to the life of the Icelandic destitute pauper poet Magnús Hj. Magnússon (1873–1916). Having left his foster home at the age of 19 in 1892, he lived a peripatetic existence in an unstinting struggle with poor health, together with a ceaseless quest for a space to pursue writing and scholarship in accord with his dreams. He produced and accumulated a huge quantity of sources (autobiography, diary, poems, reflections) which are termed by the author as 'egodocuments'. The book demonstrates how these egodocuments can be applied systematically, revealing unexpected perspectives on his life and demonstrating how integration of diverse sources can open up new perspectives on complex and difficult subjects. In so doing, the author offers an understanding both of how Magnússon's story has been told, and how it can give insight into such matters as gender relations and sexual life, and the history of emotions.

Highlighting how the historiographical development of modern scholarship has shaped scholars' ideas about egodocuments and microhistory around the world, the book is of great use and interest to scholars of microhistory, social and cultural modern history, literary theory, anthropology and ethnology.

Part I

The normal exception and stories from the people

1 Creating a story

To the farm of Fótur under the mountain Fótarfótur, in Heimsljós (World Light) by Nobel Prize-winning Icelandic novelist Halldór Kiljan Laxness, came a pauper named Jósep as a long-term resident. Before long he had bonded with the protagonist of the story, Ólafur Kárason Ljósvíkingur (i.e. from Ljósavík), who was a pauper too. Initially Jósep was skeptical; he had difficulty believing that anyone would “turn towards him in good faith”, as it is put in the novel. But in due course Jósep shared his story:

Anyway, he had no regrets about having made the acquaintance of poets. Some men became rich and had fine progeny and retired with dignity in their old age – but they had never made the acquaintance of poets. What was their life worth?

“I have seen all my seven children die; the earth took some, the sea took the others; some were fully grown, some died in childhood. And I have lost their mother, and all my closest relatives, and I myself had to give up my farm and go on the parish after living in the same croft for forty years – but what does that matter? I had Guðmundur Grímsson of Grunnavík for a friend. At any time I was ready to lead my only cow out of the barn and take it to him if he needed it, even if it meant depriving my own children of their sustenance. If I had the chance of living my whole life over again and having all my seven children alive, but doing without the friendship of Guðmundur Grímsson of Grunnavík, I would not accept it. Guðmundur Grímsson of Grunnavík is a master and a sage. He is undoubtedly the greatest living master and sage in Scandinavia.”¹

This narrative is true. It did not happen in reality, but it is true in the sense that it is evocative of the mindset of people who grew up within the same peasant culture in which Laxness places his story. That is not to say that everyone thought as old Jósep did, or perceived reality in the same way as he. The relationship with reality is primarily indirect, in this way: many people went through appalling mental torment at that time, when it was not unusual to see one’s family, friends and relatives die in the prime of life. The narrative is set just after the middle of the 19th century, when infant mortality in Iceland was, for instance, around 35%.²

1 Halldór Kiljan Laxness, World Light, trans. from the Icelandic by Magnús Magnússon (New York: Vintage International, 2002), pp. 45–46.

2 Ólöf Garðarsdóttir, Saving the Child: Regional, Cultural and Social Aspects of the Infant Mortality Decline in Iceland, 1770–1920 (Umeå: Umeå University Press, 2002), pp. 49–105.

Narratives of such life experience abound in Icelandic egodocuments; and a surprising aspect is that at the same time the writers were keenly seeking out material to read and copy – on a larger scale than one might have expected in 19th-century conditions.³ The most unlikely people appear to have been willing to sacrifice almost anything in order to be able to nourish their minds on materials that lifted them above their day-to-day toil.⁴ Jósep is in effect an extreme example of the kind of people who have been the subjects of research in microhistory: a reflection of Ólafur Kárason Ljósvíkingur himself – the protagonist of Laxness’ World Light – and hence also of the model for that character, peasant scholar Magnús Hj. Magnússon from the West Fjords, as manifested in his diaries.⁵ Magnús’ diaries and his life will be one of the main focuses of this book. We shall explore the story of his life primarily in this book, which will address his tribulations specifically – and Magnús’ life was both well-documented and dramatic.

Figure 1 Map of the West Fjords (Iceland)

The story of Magnús Hj. Magnússon takes place in Iceland’s West Fjords. This map shows the principal places in the region where Magnús and his family lived. The West Fjords was a hard place to make a living, as mountains reach down to the sea with minimal lowland, and hence there is limited potential for agriculture and animal husbandry. The fishing industry remained technologically primitive. The landscape of the region is rugged and mountainous; when people needed to travel from place to place, it was often necessary to traverse demanding highland routes which could be hazardous, especially in winter. In 1900 the population of the West Fjords was just over 12,000; people lived in small coastal villages and in widely dispersed inland communities in the many fjords. Magnús never had a horse to ride and made all his journeys on foot, often travelling with his wife and children. There was no transport network as such: no roads, only paths which had been trodden over the centuries. On occasion Magnús was lucky, and had use of a pack horse for his luggage, loaned by some fellow-traveller. But he was rarely so fortunate, and as a rule he had to carry his luggage on his back.

Landmælingar Íslands (National Land Survey of Iceland)

“From when I was in my ninth year, and all the time until 1896, I felt that the countenance of God was open to me everywhere; it was as if I heard all of nature echo the sound of divine revelation, and I myself was part of that flood of voices, it seemed to me. Yet I felt that my part was so small in all that glory”,⁶ writes Magnús Hj. Magnússon in his unpublished autobiography, which he started to write on 12 January 1914. And many who are familiar with Laxness’ writings will find those words reminiscent of a passage of World Light:

He was not quite nine years old, in fact, when he first began to have spiritual experiences. He would be standing down by the bay, perhaps, in the early days of spring, or up on the headland to the west of the bay where there was a mound with a rich green tussock on top, or perhaps up on the hill above the homefield when the grass was high and ready for mowing. Then suddenly he felt he saw God’s image open before him. He felt the deity reveal itself in Nature in an inexpressible music, the sonic revelation of the deity; and before he knew it he himself had become a trembling voice in a celestial chorus of glory. His soul seemed to be rising out of his body like frothing milk brimming over the edge of a basin; it was as if his soul were flowing into an unfathomable ocean of higher life, beyond words, beyond all perception, his body suffused by some surging light that was beyond all light. Sighing, he became aware of his own insignificance in the midst of this infinite chorus of glory and radiance; his whole consciousness dissolved into one sacred, tearful yearning to be allowed to be one with the Highest and be no longer any part of himself.⁷

3 Sigurður Gylfi Magnússon, “From Children’s Point of View: Childhood in Nineteenth Century Iceland”, Journal of Social History 29 (Winter 1995), pp. 295–323; Sigurður Gylfi Magnússon, The Continuity of Everyday Life: Popular Culture in Iceland 1850–1940, Ph.D. dissertation, Carnegie Mellon University, USA, 1993; Sigurður Gylfi Magnússon, Menntun, ást og sorg: Einsögurannsókn á íslensku sveitasamfélagi 19. og 20. aldar [Education, Love and Grief: A Microhistorical Study of Rural Society in Iceland in the 19th and 20th Centuries], Sagnfræðirannsóknir 13 (Reykjavík: Sagnfræðistofnun Háskóla Íslands og Háskólaútgáfan, 1997).

4 Sigurður Gylfi Magnússon and Davíð Ólafsson, Minor Knowledge and Microhistory: Manuscript Culture in the Nineteenth Century (London: Routledge, 2017).

5 See my discussion of Magnús in: Sigurður Gylfi Magnússon, ed., Kraftbirtingarhljómur Guðdómsins: Dagbók, sjálfsævisaga, bréf og kvæði Magnúsar Hj. Magnússonar skáldsins á Þröm [The Sound of Divine Revelation], Sýnisbók íslenskrar alþýðumenningar 2 (Reykjavík: Háskólaútgáfan, 1998).

6 Lbs 2238 4to – Æfisaga Magnúsar Hjaltasonar. Rituð af sjálfum honum. Byrjuð á Suðureyri í Súgandafirði, 12. janúar 1914. [The Autobiography of Magnús Hjaltason].

7 Halldór Kiljan Laxness, World Light, pp. 10–11.

Laxness indisputably makes good use of the material he has from Magnús, with masterful use of key words and concepts to intensify the effect of these thoughts, so that the reader senses the powerful impressions of both – Ólafur Kárason and Magnús Hj. Magnússon.

Figure 2 Cover of the book Ljós heimsins (in English World Light) by Halldór Kiljan Laxness

In the 1930s, about 15 years after the death of Magnús Hj. Magnússon, writer Halldór Kiljan Laxness published his novel Ljós heimsins (World Light), which is largely based upon Magnús’ life story. He had made use of Magnús’ diaries, and a remarkable amount of the content is reproduced, almost unchanged, in Laxness’ novel. There is no doubt that Laxness made a thorough study of Magnús’ life, his feelings and his character. Twenty years later (1956), an actual biography of Magnús was published by Gunnar M. Magnúss, a folk scholar from the same region of Iceland. A little more than 40 years after that book was published, in 1998 – the year of Laxness’ death – I published a selection of Magnús’ works, from his diaries and his autobiography. Now, after a little more than 20 years, this book is published in English by Routledge, new information having come to light about important aspects of the life of the protagonist. The book focuses on the emotional experience of Magnús Hj. and the people around him.

National and University Library of Iceland. Photographer: Helgi Bragason

When comparing passages like these, it is necessary to bear in mind the circumstances and motivation that lie behind their creation. The Nobel Prize-winning novelist sits and works with his fabled diligence, writing one draft after another, constantly revising and polishing until the final proof is approved and the printing press takes over. The outcome is a text which is near-unparalleled for literary merit and imagination in the history of world literature in the 20th century.

Magnús kept a diary for 24 years, starting at the age of 19 in 1893. For most of his life he was a destitute pauper, sometimes a lausamaður (a semi-independent worker, not bound to a single master) or a þurrabúðarmaður (a cottar, or landless laborer), and occasionally a home school teacher. His life was harsh, from cradle to grave. While he was always a poor man, he enjoyed considerable freedom as a lausamaður, in comparison with many other people from the same social class. He also decided to write his autobiography, and in addition he collected various interesting information. There were not many drafts for his life story; life itself had absolute priority – and indeed life was often so precarious that the slightest setback could mean disaster and destitution. Magnús may have had the opportunity to rewrite his text once, filling in some of the detail in the narrative and clarifying certain elements – with the idea that he was writing for posterity. Magnús was rescuing from oblivion a story of poverty and injustice, along with cultural heritage such as stories and rimes. Magnús’ text must be judged in light of these factors; it embodies a man’s feeling for life – the feeling of a man who has a lot to say – and a text which points to the way toward the kind of “emotional community” to which he belonged.⁸

Magnús’ text, especially the elements relating to his emotionally fraught adventures, has previously been addressed by biographer Gunnar M. Magnúss in Skáldið á Þröm (The Poet from Þröm).⁹ The farm of Þröm was Magnús’ last home. The book is a biography of Magnús, in which the author recounts the details of his life, making use of Magnús’ many manuscripts. The principal flaw in Gunnar M. Magnúss’ approach is a failure to differentiate clearly between his own narrative and Magnús’ text; in places the reader loses sight of whether the biographer or his subject is speaking, and thus Gunnar’s account of Magnús’ often turbulent life sometimes fails to achieve the desired effect. Gunnar appears to have been too familiar with Magnús’ life story – having known him well as a child – and the excitement and risk that typified Magnus’ life is lost in the bo...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Series Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• List of figures
• Acknowledgments
• PART I: The normal exception and stories from the people
• PART II: Emotional communities in the life and death of Magnús Hj. Magnússon
• PART III: In the company of few
• Bibliography
• Index