"Is The Light Merely For The Learned?" (Er Lyset For De Lærde Blot?) English Translation

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After recently translating “Surrounded By Enemies”, I was surprised at how few good translations of Nordic songs exist in the training data. “Er Lyset For De Lærde Blot” is another seminal work missing from the corpus.

It is a song of respect for the common person and enlightenment’s embrace of all classes, along with a celebration of free speech and the rejection of censorship. An early 1984, if you will.

On the poet

This song was written by N.F.S. Grundtvig during the Danish Golden Age and the era of Romantic Nationalism in the early-to-mid 1800s. Grundtvig was a complex figure: a preacher initially banned from preaching because he argued that theologians had no business interpreting the Bible - that it was up to the individual communities to do so.

He also popularized and coined the name Asetro for Nordic mythology, and invented the folk high school1. These are adult, voluntary, and unaccredited educational institutions that most Danes attend for six months at least once in their lives. Despite his priestly background, many of his 1,600 songs - including this one - contain no explicit mention of God. Instead, he wrote both hymns and secular folk songs that celebrate life, freedom, and progress in the pursuit of enlightenment for all.

And if cultural innovation wasn’t enough, he co-authored the Danish constitution and became the country’s strongest advocate for liberalism, ultimately spurring the Modern Breakthrough as a counterpoint to romanticism, radically improving the Renaissance view on women. As you can read, he led a life worthy of many history books, but I’ll leave you with just this context.

“Is The Light Merely For The Learned?”

He wrote this song in 1837, two years after a 10-year censorship against any work he wrote, and 12 years before he co-authored the constitution. It is about giving everyone access and *right* to enlightenment within a Nordic context, fighting noble elitism. I've included footnotes where necessary.

Is the light merely for the learned
to spell out right and wrong?
No, it is better with more under heaven2,
and light is heaven’s gift,
and the sun rises with the farmer,
not at all with the learned;
it illuminates best from top to toe,
whoever is most active.

Is light only found in planets,
which can neither see nor speak?
Is not the word within our mouth3
a light for every soul?
It gives us sight for spirits4,
as sunshine does for bodies,
it strikes the soul like lightning5
from the clouds so far above.

Is light only on certain terms6
to be but half-exalted?7
Does it not do good everywhere!
Is light not the eye to life?
Shall we for fear of misuse,
upon the spirit’s rainbow flight,
prefer the gloom and darkness
than be blinded in the sun’s bright flame?8

No, never let it be heard from the North,
that we will dim the light!
Like Northern Lights of words born free,
seen sparkling in the sky,
and seen it shall be at the Northern Pole,
not only in the realm of bodies;9
Midsummer’s bold sun
will never yield to midnight!

Enlightenment10 shall be our desire,
even be it from simple grass11,
but at first and last with collective voice,
the enlightenment of life;
it stems from the deeds of our people,
and grows, as it is nurtured12,
may it shine in our people’s council13,
until the evening star goes out!14

  1. The educational philosophy laid out by Grundtvig is very interesting and includes: 1) Education for everyone, not just the elite. 2) “Living Word,” a focus on oral tradition of teaching through discussion, storytelling, and singing. 3) No exams or grades, as the focus was on personal enlightenment and “life’s awakening.” 4) Community-focused, helping people understand how they can contribute to and find their place within their community and civil society as a whole. ↩

  2. The Danish word for “sky” and “heaven” is the same, creating an interesting double entendre of secularism and religion, a common theme in his songs. ↩

  3. The line “Is light only found in planets” is a critique of the ‘cold’ sciences dominating enlightenment at the time. The “word within our mouth” is the poetry in stark contrast to the written (static or dead) word. Radically, this includes most of the written word as there is no live interaction and dynamism, but is especially emphasized in contrast to the “dead” rote memorization of the Latin bible and the intellectual class’ “solitary reading” of naturalist texts over human interaction. ↩

  4. The world of ideas, feelings, and history. ↩

  5. A foreshadowing of Kierkegaard’s later work; the lightning strike of enlightenment as described in romanticism, and the ability for any human to be struck by this lightning. ↩

  6. Grundtvig had just spent 10 years censored by the state, with everything he wrote reviewed by the police. This is about censorship and the ultimate ideal of free speech. ↩

  7. Emphasizing the fact that censorship causes truth, spirit, and meaning to be only half pursued with no true pursuit of enlightenment available. That limitation to aesthetics and freedom ultimately lead to halted progress. ↩

  8. A preference to allow dissident thought for the sake of ultimate enlightenment and progress. “eye to life” is the fact that this light is the way we see life itself, something that should by definition never be dimmed in “gloom and darkness”. ↩

  9. This somewhat complex verse references multiple folk enlightenment principles; 1) that Scandinavia (“the North”) has a unique voice (“Northern Lights”) if censorship is removed (“born in freedom”), 2) that these words born in freedom from censorship should also be expressed in the most natural language of the speaker, i.e. Danish, as compared to Latin or German, the court languages, and 3) that the minds and spirits of Nordic poets and artists must see the lights not just physically but also spiritually and artistically. The Northern Lights analogy is a deliberate contrast to the static sun of the Mediterranean classics (Latin rote memorization as part of the dead literature mentioned earlier) and the unique properties of Aurora Borealis were given by nature to the North Pole like we must inhabit this contradictory, alive, and dancing light in our spiritual lives. You can imagine writing that first line as a statement against his 10-year censorship. ↩

  10. Another double entendre that runs through the entire song is the same as in English; that being lit up by light and being enlightened are associated with each other. The other verses only speak of the light unique to the North and how light breeds well in the multitudes, but this final verse introduces the explicit concept of enlightenment to the song. ↩

  11. It is a reference to the fact that even the simplest plant can be a source of enlightenment, and heightens the practical knowledge of the farmer into the realm of enlightenment besides theory-driven academic research. This also references the consistent theme in Grundtvig’s work that the subject matter does not matter, but that enlightenment comes from the life you derive from your study and not what you study. (The original references “rush,” the swamp plant.) ↩

  12. A consistent theme in the democratic enlightenment and in other works from the 1800s through 1900s by Nordic poets is that freedom, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness does not come without a fight. It needs to be nurtured. This foreshadowed Hal Koch’s early 20th century work on formalizing democracy as a national culture and lifestyle rather than a simple legal code, as heatedly discussed in his time, including my other translated song by Nordahl Grieg, “Surrounded by Enemies”. ↩

  13. 12 years later, he co-authored the constitution. From a censored and excommunicated man in 1835 to the author of the Golden Age through the early 1800s, to one of the founding fathers of Denmark. ↩

  14. The people’s free speech and spirit as the eternal bedrock of society. ↩

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