Norwegian literature
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Ibsen - Vesaas - Hamsun Collett - Bjørnson Wergeland - Dag Solstad Jon Fosse - Sigrid Undset Norwegian literature is literature composed in Norway or by Norwegian people. The history of Norwegian literature starts with the pagan Eddaic poems and skaldic verse of the 9th and 10th centuries with poets such as Bragi Boddason and Eyvindr Skáldaspillir. The arrival of Christianity around the year 1000 brought Norway into contact with European medieval learning, hagiography and history writing. Merged with native oral tradition and Icelandic influence this was to flower into an active period of literature production in the late 12th and early 13th centuries. Major works of that period include Historia Norwegie, Thidreks saga and Konungs skuggsjá.
The period from the 14th century up to the 19th is considered a dark age in the nation's literature though Norwegian-born writers such as Peder Claussøn Friis and Ludvig Holberg contributed to the common literature of Denmark-Norway. With the advent of nationalism and the struggle for independence in the early 19th century a new period of national literature emerged. The dramatist Henrik Wergeland was the most influential author of the period while the later works of Henrik Ibsen were to earn Norway an influential place in Western European literature. In the 20th century notable Norwegian writers include the two Nobel Prize winning authors Knut Hamsun and Sigrid Undset.

Medieval poetry
See also: Old Norse literature
In pagan times the runic alphabet was the only one used in Norway. The preserved inscriptions from that time are mostly short memorial dedications or magical formulas. One of the longest inscriptions is that on the 8th century Eggjum stone, containing cryptic religious or magical allusions. Around the years 1000 to 1030, Christianity became established in Norway, bringing with it the Latin alphabet. The oldest preserved Norwegian prose works are from the mid-12th century, the earliest are Latin hagiographical and historical texts such as Passio Olavi, Acta sanctorum in Selio, Historia Norwegie and Historia de Antiquitate Regum Norwagiensium. At the end of the 12th century historical writing expanded to the vernacular with Ágrip af Nóregskonungasögum followed by the Legendary Saga of St. Olaf and Fagrskinna.
Medieval Norwegian literature is closely tied with medieval Icelandic literature and considered together as Old Norse literature. The greatest Norse author of the 13th century was the Icelander Snorri Sturluson. He recorded Norse mythology in the form of the Prose Edda, a book of poetic language providing an important understanding of Norse culture prior to Christianity. He was also the author of the Heimskringla, a detailed history of the Norse kings that begins in the legendary Ynglinga saga and continues to document much of early Norwegian history.
The period of common Old Norse literature continued up through the 13th century with Norwegian contributions such as Thidreks saga and Konungs skuggsjá but by the 14th century saga writing was no longer cultivated in Norway and Icelandic literature became increasingly isolated.

Medieval prose
Norwegian literature was virtually nonexistent during the period of the Scandinavian Union and the subsequent Dano-Norwegian union (1387—1814). Ibsen characterized this period as "Four Hundred Years of Darkness."

"Four Hundred Years of Darkness"
Two major events precipitated a major resurgence in Norwegian literature. In 1811 a Norwegian university was established in Christiania (later named Oslo). Seized by the spirit of revolution following the American and French Revolutions, as well as bridling as a result of the forced separation from Denmark and subordination to Sweden subsequent to the Napoleonic wars, Norwegians signed their first constitution in 1814. Virtually immediately, the cultural backwater that was Norway brought forth a series of strong authors recognized first in Scandinavia, and then worldwide.
Henrik Wergeland is generally recognized as the father of a new Norwegian literature. The enthusiastic nationalism of Wergeland and his young following brought conflict with the establishment, which was unwilling to accept everything as good, simply because it was Norwegian.
This period also saw collection of Norwegian folk tales by Peter Asbjørnsen and Bishop Jorgen Moe. This collection, which paralleled those by the Brothers Grimm in Germany and Hans Christian Andersen in Denmark, captured an important overview of the folk culture of the mountains and fjords.
At least as important in the creation of a Norwegian literature was the effort to introduce a pure Norwegian language, based on the dialects spoken in the areas more isolated from capital. The genius of Ivar Aasen (1813—1898) was at the heart of this effort. Aasen, a self-taught linguistic scholar and philologist, documented a written grammar and dictionary for the spoken Norwegian folk language, which became Nynorsk (New Norwegian) – the "speech of the country" as opposed to the official language largely imported from Denmark. Nynorsk is one of the two official Norwegian languages to this day.

National Romantic Period
Although a strong contributor to early Norwegian romanticism, Henrik Ibsen is perhaps best known as an influential Norwegian playwright who was largely responsible for the popularity of modern realistic drama in Europe, with plays like The Wild Duck and A Doll's House. In this, he built on a theme first evident in Norway with plays like Bjørnson's A Bankruptcy.

Transition to Realism
Although a side note to the mainstream of Norwegian literature, the literature which documents the experience of Norwegian emigrants to American is as important as the Norwegian immigrants became to the growing America of the 19th century. Three authors are recognized in this genre; Ole Rølvaag wrote about immigrants, while Johan Bojer and Ingeborg Refling Hagen wrote about emigrants. Ole E. Rølvaag, who immigrated to America, experienced life in the prairies, and rose to become professor of Norwegian at St. Olaf College in Northfield, Minnesota, provided a strong record of the joys and pains of the immigrant in adapting to the harsh realities of and carving out a new life in a wild new country. Norwegian author Johan Bojer provided a mirror image, depicting the struggles and processes which led to the decisions to emigrate. Ingeborg Refling Hagen, having two brothers and a sister in the United States contemplated the emigrant's longing for home and their harsh struggle "over there" in a known collection of emigrant poems from 1935.

The Twentieth Century