SWEDISH LITERATURE

Literature of Sweden, written in the Swedish language. The earliest Swedish writings are in the Latin alphabet in the form of provincial laws called landskapslagar, written down in the 13th century, and the 14th-century Landslag, the king’s common law for all the Swedish provinces. To this period, too, belong the visions of the nun and mystic St. Bridget (Birgitta), recorded in Latin by her confessors. Although most of the best Swedish folk songs and ballads were also composed in the 13th and 14th centuries, extant collections date from only the 16th and 17th centuries.

During the Reformation in the 16th century, the most important writers were the brothers Olaus (1493–1552) and Laurentius Petri (1499–1573), monks who had been converted to Lutheranism while at the University of Wittenberg in Germany. Their translation of the Old Testament into Swedish is of particular importance, as is their work on the translation of the first complete Bible published in Swedish (1541). Olaus Petri, author of the Swedish Chronicle, is known as the Swedish Martin Luther. Georg Stiernhielm (1598–1672), the father of Swedish poetry, and other distinguished poets such as Samuel Columbus (1642–79), Jacob Frese (1690?–1729), and Lars Johansson, called Lucidor (1638–74), emerged in the 17th century.

In the 18th century, the leading prose writer, apart from the theologian Emanuel Swedenborg and the botanist Carolus Linnaeus, was Olof von Dalin, an essayist who reflected English and French cultural influences. In the Gustavian era (1772–1809), literature was patronized by King Gustav III, himself a poet and essayist. Among the leading Gustavians were the poets Johan Henrik Kellgren (1751–95), Carl Gustaf af Leopold (1756–1829), Count Johan Gabriel Oxenstierna (1750–1818), Frans Mikael Franzén (1772–1847), Anna Maria Lenngren (1754–1817), famed for her idylls and satires, Thomas Thorild (1759–1808), and Carl Michael Bellman, regarded as one of the finest writers of Swedish songs and poems.

In the 19th century the spirit of romanticism sweeping through Europe soon became evident in Swedish writings as well. Among early romantics was Per Daniel Amadeus Atterbom (1790–1855). The accompanying renaissance of national feeling brought into prominence such writers as Erik Gustaf Geijer, who was also a historian, and Esaias Tegnér, who was especially famous for his Frithiof’s Saga (1825; trans. 1833). Among the most important writers of the middle and late 19th century were the novelists C. J. L. Almqvist, Fredrika Bremer, and Abraham Viktor Rydberg (1828–95), and the Finnish poet Johan Ludvig Runeberg, who wrote in Swedish.

The dominating figure of modern Swedish literature was August Strindberg, a master of naturalistic drama such as Fröken Julie (1888; Miss Julie, 1918), who also developed expressionistic techniques, as in Drömspelet (1902; A Dream Play, 1929), and who was a prolific poet, novelist, and essayist as well.

The 20th century brought a revival of romanticism and a new interest in Swedish history and rural life. Neoromantics included the poets Gustaf Fröding, Erik Axel Karlfeldt, and Verner von Heidenstam, the winner of the 1916 Nobel Prize for literature; and the novelist Selma Lagerlöf, who won the 1909 Nobel Prize for literature and is best known for her historical novel The Story of Gösta Berling (2 vol., 1891; trans. 1898) and her children’s tale The Wonderful Adventures of Nils (2 vol., 1906–7; trans. 1907).

Outstanding in the following generation were the poet Birger Sjöberg (1885–1929); Per August Leonard Hallström (1866–1960), short-story writer, dramatist, and poet; Hjalmar Söderberg (1869–1941), who wrote novels, dramas, and short stories; the poet Bo Bergman (1869–1967); and Hjalmar Bergman (1883–1931), a versatile and psychologically acute novelist.

Among the “proletarian” novelists who portrayed Swedish working-class life were Ivar Lo-Johansson (1901–90) and Vilhelm Moberg (1898–1973), author of an epic novel about Swedish immigration to America. Eyvind Johnson and Harry Martinson, who shared the 1974 Nobel Prize for literature, both wrote autobiographical novels. Leading mid-century poets included Erik Lindegren (1910–68), Gunnar Ekelöf (1907–68), and Artur Lundkvist (1906–91). The outstanding figure of the period was Pär Lagerkvist. A poet and novelist whose work is concerned with the erosion of traditional values, he won the 1951 Nobel Prize for literature.

Among the major novelists who emerged in the 1940s were Lars Ahlin (1915–97), Lars Gyllensten (1921– ), and Stig Dagerman (1923–54), all of whom combined formal virtuosity with existential themes. The historical novel, an important element in recent Swedish fiction, has been further developed by Birgitta Trotzig (1929– ) and Sven Delblanc (1931– ), author of a brilliant series of novels about the transformation of rural Sweden in the 1930s and ’40s. Other writers prominent since the 1960s include Lars Gustafsson (1936– ) and P. C. Jersild (1935– ), known for his grotesque satire of the welfare-state bureaucracy. E.J.F., ERIK J. FRIIS, M.A.