Submitted Photo Dr. Irene Strychalski shared a paper on Sigrid Undset, recipient of the 1928 Nobel Prize in literature.

The 13th meeting of the Fredonia Shakespeare Club was held on Jan. 30 and hosted by Dr. Irene Strychalski. President Lucille Richardson welcomed 10 members.

Priscilla Bernatz read the minutes from the Jan. 23 meeting. The minutes were approved as written.

Joan Larson read a note she received from the Barker Library. The book “A Voice Named Aretha” has been added to the library collection in memory of Carol Boltz.

The club’s area of study this year is Nobel Prize winners. Dr. Irene Strychalski read her paper “Nobel Prize in Literature 1928,” which is summarized as follows:

Sigrid Undset, the author of the prize winning epic, “Sigrid Lavransdatter,” was born in Denmark in 1882. She grew up in Norway where her Norwegian father and well-educated Danish mother collaborated professionally, he as an archeologist and she as his secretary and illustrator. Sigrid was reared among archeological relics and manuscripts. As a result, she was intimately acquainted with the clothes, the diet, the customs, the politics, the architecture and the thinking of the late middle age characters portrayed in this novel.

The untimely death of her father led Undset to abandon her formal education in her teens and she worked as a secretary for 10 years. In her spare time, she wrote novels set in Medieval time. An influential editor advised against writing historical novels as she had no talent for them. A contemporary novel and some stories sold well, but the passion for an older world remained. Above all Undset wanted to be an artist, a woman artist, and not just a pen wielding lady.

Undset was married and had three children. During this time, she wrote a book of feminist essays. Her marriage foundered after 10 years and was annulled in 1924. She wrote to a friend: “I will hold my head high; I will not buckle under… I will not waste my talents, if I have any, I will find them and use them. I will be whatever I can be.”

The first volume of “Kristin Lavransdatter” was published in 1920, with the second and third volumes appearing in succeeding years. The trilogy was quickly translated and just as quickly embraced world-wide. Another Medieval epic followed, which also had at its heart, a pair of passionate but troubled and guilt-stricken lovers. In 1928, at the age of 46, Sigrid Undset received the Nobel Prize, chiefly for her Medieval epics. In sales, number of translations and significant honors, in 1928 she was probably the most successful woman writer in the world.

Undset was an industrious and generous woman. She donated all her Nobel prize money to charity and a decade later, when the Soviets invaded Finland, she sold her Nobel medallion to support a relief fund for Finnish children. During World War ll she fled to the United States, during which time she traveled on many speaking tours on behalf of her homeland. After the war, she returned to Norway and died in 1949 at the age of 67.

Dr. Strychalski completed her presentation by reading excerpts from the book “Kristin Lavransdatter.” Dr. Lisa Mertz assisted at the tea table.