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- Ahlund, Claes
(author)
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Elias Sehlstedt – en borgerlig modernitetsförnekare
- 2010
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In: Samlaren. - Uppsala : Svenska Litteratursällskapet. - 0348-6133 .- 2002-3871. ; 131, s. 170-194
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- Claes Ahlund, Elias Sehlstedt – en borgerlig modernitetsförnekare (Elias Sehlstedt: a bourgeois denier of modernity) The essay focuses on the poetry of Elias Sehlstedt (1808–1874) and its relation to modernity. In his own lifetime, Sehlstedt was a widely read poet, much appreciated for his sense of humour and his witty travesties of poets such as Bellman, Franzén, Lenngren, Wallin and Tegnér. During the 20th century, Sehlstedt was dismissed as a poet of bourgeois contentment, and fell into oblivion. Nevertheless, his poetry offers an advantageous starting-point for a discussion of nineteenth century bourgeois mentalities. The object of the essay is to relate this aspect of Sehlstedt’s work not only to the private sphere of the middle class, but also to the market and to the political sphere. Theoretically, the essay relates to Matei Calinescu’s discussion of the antagonistic relation between the bourgeois idea of modernity and the aesthetic one, to Victor Svanberg’s discussion of Swedish middle-class realism, and to the concept of the structural transformation of the public sphere developed by Jürgen Habermas. In his poetry, Sehlstedt praises the modest yet comfortable life of the middle-class. He pays tribute to family values and to jovial social life. In both cases, his outlook is strikingly narrow. The current rapid transformation of the Swedish society through industrialization, urbanization and technological progress is made invisible, and can only be perceived indirectly. In addition to the general escapist tendency, the theme of financial worries is an example of this. Sehlstedt’s use of comic punch-lines often serves the same escapist purpose; smoothly obscuring modernity by means of laughter. To the modern reader, they nevertheless point out the very threats of modernity they were supposed to veil.
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- Ahlund, Claes
(author)
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En mental militarisering : Den svenska litteraturen före och under första världskriget
- 2003
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In: Samlaren. - Uppsala : Svenska Litteratursällskapet. - 0348-6133 .- 2002-3871. ; 124, s. 134-157
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- Claes Ahlund, A Militarization of the Mind: Swedish Literature and the First World War The essay suggests that the literature of the First World War does not begin with the actual outbreak of the war in 1914, but much earlier. Anticipation of the coming war is a recurrent theme in Swedish literature during the preceding decades; attitudes varying from nationalist enthusiasm to pacifist and anti-militarist abhorrence. On both sides, however, ambivalence and contradiction are characteristic features. Among the authors discussed in this context are Nils Gottfrid Björck ("Sigvald Götsson", 1896–1891), Verner von Heidenstam (1859–1940), Iwan Aminoff (1868–1928) and Frida Stéenhoff (1865–1945).Anticipation of a coming war occur in poetry as well as in drama and what can be termed the invasion story, a genre increasingly popular in the decades between the Franco-Prussian War in 1870–1871 and the outbreak of the Great War in 1914. The invasion story typically tells of a successful future invasion by a hostile nation that proves armaments and military training to have been totally insufficient. Particularly important in setting the standard for the invasion story was the Battle of Dorking (1871), written by Sir George Tomkyns Chesney. In the following decades invasion stories were written in–and translated into–many languages in Western Europe. The Swedish contributions include Hur vi förlorade Norrland ("How Norrland was lost", 1889), Hvarför vi förlorade slaget vid Upsala ("Why we lost the battle of Upsala", 1890), Med vapen i hand. Romantiserad skildring af vårt kommande krig ("At arms: a romantic story of our coming war", 1901–1902), and two invasion stories written by the same author, Iwan Aminoff: När krigsguden talar ("When the War-God speaks", 1912), and Invasionen ("The Invasion", 1912).The literature of the decades preceding 1914 shows that the vision of a coming war was gradually becoming more substantial. The premonitions of war can be described as a dark undercurrent in a period otherwise characterized by technological and scientific progress as well as an optimistic view of the development of civilization. It is an undercurrent related either to nationalistic/quasi-religious and social darwinist conceptions of war as a positive factor in the history of civilization, or to pessimistic ideas of decadence and degeneration. In the war-literature before the war, there are pacifist novels as well as romantic and heroic stories; anti-militarist poetry as well as versified nationalist propaganda, urging the readers (and the authorities) to prepare for glorious and heroic war.The second section of the essay deals with reactions to the war in nationalist magazines and children's literature in Sweden during the autumn of 1914. Far from giving an accurate picture of the realities of war, the journalists describe it as an adventure full of heroic opportunities. Neutral Sweden being excluded from direct participation in the warfare, many writers use history as a means to raise nationalist sentiment. Supposedly heroic deeds of the Swedish 17th and 18th century are typically set up as inspiring examples.In the third and final section of the essay, the attitudes to the war in poetry published in right-wing, liberal, and socialist daily papers are discussed. The martial enthusiasm, predominant among conservative writers and right-wing papers in the early months of the war, in many cases is gradually replaced by a weariness of war. In the poetry published in the conservative Nya Dagligt Allehanda, however, the romantic attitude to war is maintained to the bitter end. Due to the civil war in Finland, heroic and romantic contributions even increase during 1918. The liberal daily Dagens Nyheter, on the other hand, at all times keeps a reserved and critical position. The radical socialist Brand has the critical attitude towards war in common with the liberal daily. The poetry published in Brand differs from that of Dagens Nyheter above all in focusing not only on the senseless suffering and the immense costs of war, but also on the question of responsibility; targeting capitalists, the monarchy and the clergy alternately.
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- Ahlund, Claes
(author)
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Krig och kultur i konservativ och radikal belysning : Annie Åkerhielm och Frida Stéenhoff från sekelskiftet till första världskriget
- 2005
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In: Samlaren. - Uppsala : Svenska Litteratursällskapet. - 0348-6133 .- 2002-3871. ; 126, s. 97-150
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- Claes Ahlund, Krig och kultur i konservativ och radikal belysning. Annie Åkerhielm och Frida Stéenhoff från sekelskiftet till första världskriget. (War and Culture in a Conservative and a Radical Light: Annie Åkerhielm and Frida Stéenhoff from the Turn of the Century to the First World War.) The purpose of the essay is to discuss the conceptions of war and of contemporary society and culture put forward in the writings of two diametrical political opposites: the conservative Annie Åkerhielm (1869–1958) and the radical feminist Frida Stéenhoff (1865–1945). Åkerhielm and Stéenhoff both engaged in the debate on war and culture by publishing a number of pamphlets and polemic articles, but they were also writers of fiction. Åkerhielm published novels, short stories and poetry; Stéenhoff, a number of plays, but also some novels. Annie Åkerhielm and Frida Stéenhoff represent different political parties: Åkerhielm, the conservative and pro-German nationalists; Steenhoff, the radical liberal pacifists. Åkerhielm advocates the value of war and stresses the individual’s duty to subordinate himself to the state, opinions closely related to those of anti-democratic and anti-liberal thinkers such as Rudolf Kjellén and Werner Sombart and propagated as "The Ideas of 1914". Stéenhoff, on the other hand, upholds a radical interpretation of the tradition of the Enlightenment, emphasizing the rights and liberty of the individual, including women, and embracing an optimistic theory of evolution. This makes her a pronounced representative of the antagonistic tradition, "The Ideas of 1789", identified by Kjellén as a major threat to the well-being of the nation. The outbreak of the war, being a major setback for international cooperation and the peace movement, temporarily caused Frida Stéenhoff to mistrust her own faith in progress and the final triumph of her ideals of love, peace, and liberty. At the end of the war, Annie Åkerhielm suffered a similar dejection caused by the collapse of Germany and the ideals and the culture it represented. Stéenhoff’s reactions are discussed with the novel Ljusa bragder och mörka dåd (1915) ("Bright feats and dark deeds"), the pamphlet "Krigets herrar – världens herrar! (1915) ("The lords of war — the lords of the world"), and the essay "Den nya moralen och Ellen Key som dess tolkare" (1919, "The new morality and Ellen Key as its interpreter") as a point of departure. The discussion of Åkerhielm’s reactions to the war centres on the poem "Emden" (1914), the collection of short stories, Sagor och fantasier (1915, "Tales and fantasies"), the pamphlet Antidemokratiska stämningsstunder (1917, "In the anti-democratic mood"), and the novel Anno Domini (1921).
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- Ahlund, Claes, 1957-
(author)
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"Under späkelsernas gissel. Karlfeldt och kriget"
- 2008
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In: Edda. Nordisk tidsskrift for litteraturforskning. - 0013-0818 .- 1500-1989. ; 95:3, s. 234-248
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- The war poetry of Erik Axel Karlfeldt (1864-1931) is a neglected part of the poet's work. The aim of this article is to discuss three poems from Flora och Bellona (1918): "Det röda korset" ("The Red Cross"), "Svart Jul" ("Black Christmas") and "En pesthymn" ("A Hymn of Pestilence"). Attention is paid to the ideological level of the poems, but also to their poetic structure. The poems are related to Peter Hallberg's discussion of Karlfeldt's archaistic imagery, to Esaias Tegnér's "Svea", but also to the contemporary political poetry of outspoken nationalists and socialists. Compared to the explicit political poetry, Karlfeldt's poetry is complex, often ambivalent in its criticism of both belligerents and alternately displaying despair and optimism. "En pesthymn" can be seen as a turning point, mirroring the outbreak in 1918 of the Finnish Civil War. In this poem, the ambivalent moral judgements of the poet's preceding war poetry are replaced by unequivocal political support for the "Whites".
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- Areskoug, Linn, 1977-
(author)
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Den svenske mannens gränsland : Manlighet, nation och modernitet i Sven Lidmans Silfverstååhlsvit
- 2011
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Doctoral thesis (other academic/artistic)abstract
- This thesis deals with the nationalistic imaginary in the novels of Sven Lidman, published 1910–1913. The novels hold forth a conservative point-of-view that embraces the bourgeois ideal of masculinity and the idea of the healthy, Swedish rural way of life as opposed to the destructive metropolis. This dualism is part of a dichotomy that structures the novels. It also entails continuity/fragmentation, the Swedish/the foreign, men/women, activity/ passivity as well as masculinity/femininity and unmanliness. In the Silfverstååhl-cycle the protagonists are young men of a noble, Swedish family. They progress from lost and introspective youths to grown men who are deeply concerned with and engaged in society. They are different representatives of the Swedish man – the farmer, the business man, the explorer and the clergy man. What unites them is how their “coming of age” develops, how through trial and struggle they become stronger and prove worthy of the manly role they finally take on. This is a major principle of the bourgeois masculinity that is also closely connected to the national identity of the men. There is also an ambiguity concerning modernity. Throughout the novels a critique of modern society is formulated, that acknowledges the modern age but simultaneously takes on a prudent attitude towards modern society. There is no going back for the Swedish nation; the modern times have to be confronted. The present is very important since it is the time for scrutiny. The handling of the modern era takes place in the developing processes of the young men, who have to be careful not to get trapped in the modern whirlpool that threatens to shatter the human being. The past, the familiar and the rural anchorage that the family relation entitles, is a defense against the destructive forces of modernity. But the past is not completely beneficial. Even though the past is of major importance to the national identity of the protagonists, they have to be very careful not to delve too much into the past because of the risk of paralysis and effeminization. In the nationalistic narrative the present encapsulates the past and the future. The Swedish man has to navigate in the borderland of modernity.
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- Jonasson, Anna-Karin
(author)
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Gränskronotopen och upplösningen av formens värld : En studie av gränstematiken i Kerstin Ekmans trilogi Vargskinnet (1999-2003)
- 2022
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Doctoral thesis (other academic/artistic)abstract
- The aim of this study is to explore the border theme in the Vargskinnet (The Wolfskin) trilogy (1999–2003) by Kerstin Ekman. Some motifs, such as skin and water, play important roles in this context, as they form part of the novels’ designs of the maintenance, transcending and dissolution of boundaries. These boundary phenomena are derived from different contexts — cultural and geographical, as well as abstract and material — and in the novels they appear mainly as recurring patterns in the novels’ subtext. The trilogy consists of Guds barmhärtighet (God's Mercy), 1999, Sista rompan (The Last String) 2002, and Skraplotter (Lottery Scratchcards), 2003. In addition to the important border motifs, the novels contain, on an overall level, problematisations of the relationship between form and content, between external and internal. Human perceptions and relation to boundary definition and demarcation are central elements of the theme to which I draw attention and include artistic creation. The analyses show how Ekman constantly relates to tradition and renewal, to different literary direction and to other writers in her treatment of man as an image creator. Vargskinnet’s thematisation of borders in various forms highlights, above all, an ongoing struggle: the struggle for power over time and space. The importance of raising awareness of the driving forces behind our ideas of the world, of our place in it and of our relations with the outside world is also highlighted in these novels. Problematisations of artistic creation, boundaries and power struggle are also found in other novels by Ekman. Examples from two of these, Gör mig levande igen ( Make Me Alive Again), 1996 and Grand final i skojarbranschen (Grand Final in the Entertainment Industry), 2011, are therefore used to deepen the analyses of Vargskinnet’s border themes.The analytical starting points of the study are mainly derived from literary theory as well as philosophical and posthumanist, feminist theory. As time and space are important elements of Vargskinnet's border themes, Michail Bachtin’s theories of the chronotope — a concept referring to the artistic designs of time and space in novels — offer useful concepts and perspectives. These make it possible to distinguish patterns in the novel’s text, in the form of repetitions and variations. Some constellations of images and descriptions recur.Maurice Merleau-Ponty’s phenomenological philosophy deals with human perceptions of the relationship between form and content, as well as various border phenomena, mainly based on the body and our senses. Verbal images are particularly important in his philosophy and this applies not least to innovative metaphors. These are most prominent in his late writings, such as the posthumously published The Visible and the Invisible (1968). The complex relationship between inner and outer, as well as the creative potential of image creation, are important motives in Vargskinnet and Merleau-Ponty’s concepts and reasoning highlight their function in the trilogy.Rosi Braidotti is associated with both material feminism and posthumanism and is today one of the leading theorists in these fields of research. Braidotti’s intriguing interdisciplinary perspectives and the breadth of the range of questions she discusses make her theories difficult to summarise, but something I have taken on in the study of Vargskinnet is her quest for a new, non-linear way in which to describe and understand the world. On the one hand, it can be said to be characteristic of Ekman’s style, and on the other hand it fits well into my search for patterns in the form of recurring border motifs in her novels.
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- Nordlund, Anna, 1966-
(author)
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Selma Lagerlöfs underbara resa genom den svenska litteraturhistorien 1891–1996
- 2005
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Doctoral thesis (other academic/artistic)abstract
- Selma Lagerlöf (1858–1940) is generally considered one of Sweden’s few world renowned and undisputed canonical novelists. Despite her fame and success, however, Selma Lagerlöf’s status as an important artist within the literary canon has always been problematic. This dissertation examines how literary critics initially received Selma Lagerlöf ’s literary corpus and how her corpus has been subsequently treated in Swedish literary criticism and literary histories of the twentieth century. When Lagerlöf made her literary debut with the novel Gösta Berlings saga in 1891 she helped pioneer a new symbolist, anti-realist direction in Swedish literature, known as ”nittitalismen” (the 1890s' movement). The first part of the dissertation shows how the literary establishment of her time constructed Lagerlöf ’s reputation as that of a passive re-teller, and moreover, a re-teller of considerably less radically charged material than that found in the portrayal of women’s life experiences in the novels and dramas of the preceding decade. She was made into an innate storyteller of legends and tales. In the second part of the dissertation scholarly studies of Selma Lagerlöf ’s work are explored together with surveys in literary histories. In the 1950s the first wave of Lagerlöf scholars set out to show that Selma Lagerlöf was a modern writer, fully aware of her artistry and concerned with contemporary matters. In the 1980s a new era of Lagerlöf scholarship dawned. It focused its critical attention on Lagerlöf ’s textual modernity and slowly displaced traditional positivism with hermeneutics and semiotics. In the last chapter of the dissertation surveys of male authors August Strindberg and Verner von Heidenstam are compared with surveys of Lagerlöf in literary histories. The quantitative and qualitative results are much to Strindberg’s and Heidenstam’s advantage. Strindberg remains an overwhelmingly dominant figure in Swedish literary histories. An internationally less prominent author such as Verner von Heidenstam is revered as the precursor and leader of the important 1890s’ movement in Swedish literature. Lagerlöf remains mostly framed as the great storyteller of the 1890s, despite all the academic criticism that has evolved around Lagerlöf in the latter part of the last century, showing Lagerlöf as a highly independent, original and influential artist. One conclusion that can be drawn from this dissertation is that the context of the traditional literary history needs opening up. One possibility would be to include more of the general public’s perspective and thus place more focus on the reception history of literature. Such a historiography would primarily account for how aesthetic qualities in a literary oeuvre have been used and received rather than emphasize how these aesthetic qualities fit into the traditional literary and philosophical contexts. Arguably, such a historiography would stand a better chance to do full justice to successful female authors.
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- Qvarnström, Sofi, 1976-
(author)
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Motståndets berättelser : Elin Wägner, Anna Lenah Elgström, Marika Stiernstedt och första världskriget
- 2009
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Doctoral thesis (other academic/artistic)abstract
- War criticism is not just expressed in journalistic and academic writing or in political speeches, but also in literature, such as in novels and short stories. This dissertation analyzes how war criticism is formulated in Swedish fiction written during the First World War (1914–1918). The study combines perspectives from rhetorical, narrative and sociological theory and focuses on how writers resist war through literature, and what characterize these narratives of resistance, thematically and rhetorically. After a general discussion of the anti-war prose in Sweden, the discussion is focused on the writings of Elin Wägner, Anna Lenah Elgström and Marika Stiernstedt. In addition to their fiction they criticized the war in newspaper articles, pamphlets, lectures and travel books. These non-fictive genres are also an important part of their war criticism, and the comparison between genres is fundamental to the study. The narratives of war become part of a broader criticism of the social order which includes questions of ethics, ideology, democracy and emancipation. The Swedish war criticism also reveals a struggle of ideologies and values where the opponents – conservatives against liberals and socialists – are not always as distanced from each other as first believed. If literature, following Kenneth Burke, is regarded as a way of naming and encompassing a situation, three main types of narratives can be distinguished: the narrative as witness, as accusation and as exhortation. Each is characterised by certain motives – representations of pain and suffering, of militarism and of the idea of peace – as well as by a particular rhetoric, such as the narrator’s visibility or strategies of identification. The fictive works analyzed differ from the non-fictive ones by favouring a more pessimist outlook, but also a more searching and complex representation of war. Thereby, the ambiguities and parallel interpretations of fiction counteract a one-sided and superficial understanding of the war.
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