1. "Ridderen av det brustne hjerte" (Knight of the broken heart), Bøker og Mennesker (Oslo: Gyldendal, 1979), 58; Samlede Essays: Kultur 2, (Oslo: Pax, 1996) 226f. [English web page on Peter Wessel Zappfe]
2. In Bjørneboe's first writings there is some evidence that he compared his own social situation as an outsider with that of the biblical prophets: "The John-tale is the story about what happens to the man of God who acuses the powerful of this world . . . Men like Isaiah and Jeremiah showed the traces of what the work of a prophet costs." ("Sølvalteret i Firenze," Spektrum 1951: 212, 214.) See also the poems "John the Baptist" and "Jeremiah" in Dikt, 1951.
3. "Mitt hjerte" (My heart), Den store by.
4. Riksmål: When Norway was under Danish rule, Danish was the official and literary language. After Norway became independent, attempts were made to devise a literary language based on a Norwegian dialect. There are now two official Norwegian languages, both taught in schools: Riksmål, which descends from the Danish literary language, and Nynorsk (New Norwegian), based on a rural Norwegian dialect. [EGM]
5. [Nils Kjær, Norwegian, 1870-1924; Olaf Bull, Norwegian, 1883-1933; Franz Werfel, Czech/Austrian, 1890-1945; Arthur Koestler, Hungarian/British, 1905-1983. --EGM] The Kjær influence (cf. the epistle "Schiller's Mother-in-Law"!) is troublesome in "Brev anbelagended videnskapen" in Spektrum 1950, 256. The stylistic influence from Olaf Bull is significant in poems such as "Spurven" and "Litterær Jul" in Dikt and "Til en dikter" in Ariadne. On the relationship to Koestler, see "Det unsynlige skrift" (review of Koestler's The Invisible Writing), Bøker og Mennesker, 98f; SamledeEssays: Kultur 2, 215f.
6. (3) See, for example, the postscript to Før Hanen Galer (Paxbok 1967, 187), Bindestreken 1972, no. 3: 4, and Frihetens Øyeblikk, 20.
7. (cf. the prefaces to Hertug Hans, 7; the play Semmelweis, 5-6; and Stillheten, 194).
8. According to what Bjørneboe stated later in Stillheten (163), the book must be Wolfgang Langhoff's Myrsoldater, translated by Hans Heiberg (Oslo, 1935).
9. "Hemingway og dyrene" (Hemingway and the beasts). Politi og Anarki, 190-192. Samlede Essays: Kultur 2, 6.
10. Bjørneboe has also talked about this part of his life in his postscript to the Pax edition of Før hanen galer and in Carl Madsen's En litterær process (A literary lawsuit) (Copenhagen, 1968), 36; Samlede Essays: Kultur 1, 210f.
11. "Broren," Lanterner, 13-23; Samlede Essays: Epistler, 5-16.
13. Leif Longum, Et Speil for Oss Selv (A Mirror of Ourselves), Oslo: Aschehoug, 1968, 54.
14. Carl Madsen, A Literary Trial, Copenhagen 1968, 61.
15. On Bjørneboe's relation to the myths see especially "Hemingway og dyrene" (Hemingway and the beasts) in Politi og anarki (Oslo, 1972), 189. Samlede Essays: Kultur 2, 10f.
16. "Det gamle testament og det enkelte barn", Under en Mykere Himmel (Oslo: Gyldendal, 1976), 61f. Samlede Essays: Pedagogikk, 67.
17. Helmut Kreuzer, "Existentielle Prosa, spiritueller Anarchismus: zum Augenblick der Freiheit von Jens Bjørneboe". In Probleme des Erzahlens in der Weltliteratur (Narrative problems in world literature): Festschrift für Kate Hamburger zum 75. Geburtstag, ed. Fritz Martini (Stuttgart: Klett, 1971), 366.
18. See also the poem "De evige smerter" (The eternal pains) in Dikt.
19. The poem is in the debut collection Dikt. Cf. "Cimabue" in the same collection.
20. It is possible that here there is an influence from Brecht's aesthetics.