«Mitt namn er Petter Dass, som bur mot norskfagets ende»

Abstract

School reforms in recent decades, such as Kunnskapsløftet 2006, have expanded the Norwegian common core subject to include new text cultures and competence aims. A curriculum based on classic works of fiction is long gone. This development has had a twofold result on a historical author such as Petter Dass. On the one hand, we no longer read him as national literature; it may cause some teachers not seeing the value of teaching about the poet-priest at school. But on the other hand, new text cultures bring with them a softening of the traditional division between fiction and non-fiction. It has a fortunate effect: a rediscovery of the historical Petter Dass and new perspectives on Dass's poetry. In this article, I first examine rediscoveries of the historical authorship of Petter Dass, as Dass as a didactic and as an author of natural history. I then examine the presentation of the poet-priest in a selection of new textbooks for the school to see if any new insights of the poet-priest are included. The article shows both fortunate and unfortunate results in renewing the presentation of the renaissance poet in recent textbooks.