Although Tarjei Vesaas is regarded as one of the foremost innovators in Norwegian literary modernism, his work is difficult to place definitively; he occupies a position somewhere between realism and symbolism, between traditionalism and modernism, and between Norwegian and wider European literature. Vesaas wrote novels, short stories, poetry, and plays, and one of his trademarks is a blending of genres: while his fiction and plays have a lyrical quality, his poetry often exhibits narrative or dramatic traits. This factor, along with his tendencies to metaphorical stylization and powerful imagery and his depictions of rustic Norwegian rural life and nature, are among the reasons why it is so difficult to place Vesaas in a literary-historical context. His use of symbolism makes him more than a realistic pastoral author, while the strong grounding of his work in rural life and in nature and the conspicuous absence of cities and urbanity...