Undset - Sigrid Undset

A female Norwegian novelist. Born to a famous archaeologist and a Danish mother. She wanted to be an artist, but her father died young, so she left commerce school and became a clerk, and began to write about her experiences. Her first work, "Mrs. Marta Woolley" (1907), is a diary-style story about a woman who is married to an ordinary worker and commits adultery out of boredom. "Jenny" (1911), a representative work from her early period, depicts in a very frank and bold way the story of an earnest woman with a talent for painting who goes to Rome and marries her ideal partner, Helge, but soon becomes dissatisfied with her husband's personality, and after returning home, she gives herself to her husband's father, and is tormented by the love triangle that leads to her committing suicide. She later married a much older painter, and began to emphasize that a woman's happiness does not lie in "women's liberation," but in her husband, children, and home, and wrote works such as "Spring" (1914). However, her marriage also failed, and these painful experiences led her to ponder deeply on the tragedy of humanity and religion, which led to the two great works that made her famous worldwide. In the Kristin Labransdatter trilogy (1920-22) and the Olav Odundsen tetralogy (1925-27), she finally came to the conclusion that humans can only be saved through faith, and in the process converted to Catholicism. In 1928, she was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature. When the German army invaded her homeland in 1940, she went into exile in the United States, where she engaged in the resistance movement through lectures and radio. She returned to the United States when peace was restored, but she died suddenly before she could do much. Her unfinished posthumous work is Madame Dorothea.

[Yamamuro Shizuka]

Source: Shogakukan Encyclopedia Nipponica About Encyclopedia Nipponica Information | Legend

ノルウェーの女流小説家。有名な考古学者を父とし、デンマーク人を母として生まれる。画家志望だったが、父の早世のため商業学校を出て事務員となり、その体験を描くことから出発した。処女作『マルタ・ウーリィ夫人』（1907）は、平凡な労働者と結婚した女性が倦怠(けんたい)から姦通(かんつう)を犯すまでを日記体に描いた作品。『イェンニー』（1911）は前期の代表作で、まじめで絵の天分もある女がローマに行って理想の相手ヘルゲと結ばれるが、やがて夫の性格に飽き足らず、帰国後は夫の父親に身を任せ、その三角関係に悩んで自殺するに至る過程をきわめて率直大胆に描いた。そののちはるか年上の画家と結婚し、女性の幸福は「婦人解放」にはなく、夫と子と家庭にあることを強調するようになり、『春』（1914）などの作品を書く。しかし結婚生活にも失敗し、これらの苦しい体験を経て人間の悲劇性と宗教に深く思いを潜め、そこに作者の名を世界的にした二つの大作が書かれる。『クリスチン・ラブランスダッター』三部作（1920～22）と『ウーラブ・オードウンセン』四部作（1925～27）で、人間はついに信仰によってでなくては救われぬというのが彼女の得た結論で、その過程でカトリックに改宗した。1928年ノーベル文学賞受賞。40年、祖国にドイツ軍が侵入するとアメリカに亡命し、講演・ラジオなどを通じて抵抗運動に従事した。平和回復によって帰国したが、あまり活動しないうちに急逝した。未完の遺作に『ドロテア夫人』がある。

［山室　静］

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