Swedish Modernist poetry

Swedish Modernist poetry

Swedish modernist poetry denotes modernist poetry of Swedish literature. It developed in the 1930s and 40's. Distinguishing features was the lust to experiment, and to try a variety of styles, usually free prose without rhymes or metric syllables.

The lead figure of the modernists soon turned out to be Hjalmar Gullberg (1898–1961). He wrote many mystical and Christianity influenced collections, such as "Andliga övningar" (Spiritual Exercises, 1932), but continued to develop and published his greatest work, "Ögon, läppar" (Eyes, Lips), in 1959.

Other important modernistic poets were Artur Lundkvist (1906–1991), Gunnar Ekelöf (1907–1968), Edith Södergran (1892–1923) and Harry Martinson (1904–1978).

Gunnar Ekelöf has become described as Sweden's first surrealistic poet, after he debuted with the poetry collection "sent på jorden" in 1932, a work was too unconventional to become appreciated. "Lundkvist, Martinsson, Ekelöf", by Espmark & Olsson, in Delblanc, Lönnroth, Göransson, vol 3] But Ekelöf moved towards romanticism and got betters reviews for his second poetry collection "Dedikationen" in 1934. A work that became influential for later Swedish poets was his "Färjesång" in 1941, a finely expressed blend of romanticism, surrealism and the dark clouds of the ongoing war. x]

Edith Södergran did not achieve fame during her lifetime, but is today regarded as one of the foremost modernistic poets from the Nordic countries, and she has been translated into all major languages. Her first poetry collection was "Dikter" in 1916, but it was her second collection, "Septemberlyran" (1918) that caught the attention of a larger audience. It is distinguished by a kind of beauty that had not been seen for a long time. Södergran tragically suffered from tuberculosis, which took her life as early as 1923. x]

Harry Martinson had an unparalleled feeling of nature, in the spirit of Linnaeus. As typical for his generation, he wrote with a free prosody, not bound by rhymes and syllables. A classic work was the autobiographical "Flowering Nettles", in 1935. His most remarkable work was however "Aniara", 1956, a story of a spaceship drifting through space. [Algulin, p.230-231]

The arguably most famous Swedish poet of the 20th century is otherwise Tomas Tranströmer (1931–). His poetry is distinguished by a Christian mysticism, moving on the verge between dream and reality, the physical and the metaphysical. ["Poeten dold i Bilden", Lilja & Schiöler, in Lönnroth, Delblanc & Göransson (ed.), vol 3, pp.342-370]

Notes and references


* Algulin, Ingemar, "A History of Swedish Literature", published by the Swedish Institute, 1989. ISBN 91-520-0239-X
* Gustafson, Alrik, "A History of Swedish Literature" (2 volumes), 1961.
* Lönnroth, L., Delblanc S., Göransson, S. "Den svenska litteraturen" (ed.), 3 volumes (1999)
* Swedish Institute, " [http://www.sweden.se/templates/cs/BasicFactsheet____3231.aspx Modern Literature] ", accessed October 17, 2006
* Tigerstedt, E.N., "Svensk litteraturhistoria" (Tryckindustri AB, Solna, 1971)


Wikimedia Foundation. 2010.

Игры ⚽ Нужен реферат?

Look at other dictionaries:

  • Swedish language — Swedish svenska Pronunciation [ˈsvɛ̂nskâ] Spoken in   …   Wikipedia

  • Swedish dialects — can be categorized into Traditional Dialects (with no Standard Swedish influence) and Modern Dialects (with various degrees of Standard Swedish influence). Contents 1 Traditional dialects 2 See also 3 References …   Wikipedia

  • Poetry — This article is about the art form. For other uses, see Poetry (disambiguation). Literature Major forms Novel · Poem · Drama Short story · Novella …   Wikipedia

  • Modernist Swedish literature — Modernistic Swedish literature refers to modernist literature of Swedish literature. The period started in the 1910s, although there is no exact year. Some regard the year 1910 as the starting year, when August Strindberg published several… …   Wikipedia

  • Swedish literature — refers to literature written in the Swedish language or by writers from Sweden. [For example, both Birgitta of Sweden (14th century) and Emanuel Swedenborg (18th century) wrote most of their work in Latin, but since they came from Sweden, their… …   Wikipedia

  • Modern Swedish — nysvenska Spoken in Sweden, Finland, Saint Barthélemy and Estonia Extinct developed into contemporary Swedish by the late 19th century …   Wikipedia

  • Old Swedish — Spoken in Sweden, Finland and Åland Era Evolved into Modern Swedish by the 16th century Language family Indo European Germanic …   Wikipedia

  • Mandatory Swedish — In Finland, Swedish is a mandatory school subject for Finnish speaking pupils in the last three years of the primary education (grades 7 to 9). It is also mandatory in high schools, vocational schools, and vocational universities. Furthermore,… …   Wikipedia

  • List of years in poetry — This page gives a chronological list of years in poetry (descending order). These pages supplement the List of years in literature pages with a focus on events in the history of poetry. Contents 1 21st century in poetry 1.1 2010s 1.2 2000s …   Wikipedia

  • 1968 in poetry — yearbox2 in?=in poetry in2?=in literature cp=19th century c=20th century cf=21st century yp1=1965 yp2=1966 yp3=1967 year=1968 ya1=1969 ya2=1970 ya3=1971 dp3=1930s dp2=1940s dp1=1950s d=1960s da=0 dn1=1970s dn2=1980s dn3=1990s|Events* The Belfast… …   Wikipedia

Share the article and excerpts

Direct link
… Do a right-click on the link above
and select “Copy Link”