Den norske litterære stranden

Abstract

After the installment of recreational seaside resorts in England in the 18th and 19th century, the beach soon manifests as a modern version of the literary topos locus amoenus. A similar following is seen in Norway in the first half of the 20th century, where the beach in the novel is expressed as a place for recreation, erotic adventures and bathing in the sea and under the sun.

Having this development as a backdrop, I analyze excerpts from three contemporary Norwegian novels. With attention to an increasing income of waste and the growth of private housebuilding, the novels express aspects of the more negative sides of what initially made the beach a locus amoenus. But this is not unambiguously. The beach is also a good place.

The article shows that even in a time span of nearly a hundred years, literature bear witness to and articulates how beaches’ identities and the use of them is dependent on a given times political, economic, ideologic and cultural influences, which means that how the beach will be characterized in the future are being negotiated as we speak.