Swedish Literature Katarina Bernhardsson, Lund University

Swedish Literature Katarina Bernhardsson, Lund University 1. General Maria M. Berglund, Värv och verk. Förnyelse och tradition i Nordisk kvinnolitteraturhistoria från tillkomst till tryckt bok, Karlstad U.P., 320 pp., a Karlstad dissertation, is an evaluation of the large Nordic project in history of literature, The History of Nordic Women’s Literature, published in four volumes 1993–98. B. analyses the process of writing, the reception, and the resulting volumes. In three case studies she focuses on the reinterpretation of three canonical authors — Swedish Anna Maria Lenngren, Norwegian Amelie Skram, and Danish Karen Blixen — as well as on the selection of literary genres covered in the work. Åsa Arping, ‘Hvad gör väl namnet?’ Anonymitet och varumärkesbyggande i svensk litteraturkritik 1820–1850, Gothenburg, Makadam, 350 pp., is a study of author names and the function of the author in the press and book market of the early 19th century. In the 1840s, A. discerns a structural change, where anonymous publishing was challenged by new demands for individual perspectives and, as a result, image-making. A. studies the use of anonymity, traditionally seen as concealment and protection, especially for female writers, and shows how anonymity for women also offered possibilities to transgress prescribed norms. A. specifically studies the critics and journalists Wendela Hebbe, Oscar Patrick Sturtzenbecher, and Johan Peter Theorell. Lina Samuelsson, Kritikens ordning. Svenska bokrecensioner 1906, 1956, 2006, Karlstad, Bild, Text & Form, 273 pp., a Karlstad dissertation, approaches a century of literary criticism by in-depth study of three years. Through this ‘media archaeological’ approach, and by choosing years that are not known for any specific literary event or debate, S. wants to capture the development of literary criticism in Sweden. S. analyses the reviews and identifies central criteria for the critical evaluation and the role of the critic: from 1906’s interest in the author’s development and the psychological credibility of literature, via 1956’s emphasis on interpretation and valuing of simplicity, to 2006’s interest in the critic’s emotions and experiences when reading literature. S.’s study shows the increase in the number of critics over time, and discredits some commonly held views, for example that the volume of literary criticism has dropped significantly since the 1950s. Sigurd Kværndrup and Tommy Olofsson, Medeltiden i ord och bild. Folkligt och groteskt i nordiska kyrkmålningar och ballader, Stockholm, Atlantis, 250 pp., studies the intermedial relation between medieval church paintings and ballads in Denmark and Sweden. Gunilla Hermansson, ‘Expressionism, Fiction and Intermediality in Nordic Modernism’, pp. 207–20 of The Aesthetics of Matter. Modernism, the Avant-Garde, and Material Exchange. European Avant-Garde and Modernism Studies, iii, ed. David Ayers et al., Berlin, de Gruyter, 435 pp., discusses the ideas and lines of rhetoric related to the label ‘expressionist prose’ in Scandinavian-speaking countries, paying special attention to the media combination in Hagar Olsson’s På Kanaanexpressen. Mats Jansson, ‘Crossing Borders: Modernism in Sweden and the Swedish-speaking Part of Finland’, pp. 666–90 of The Oxford Critical and Cultural History of Modernist Magazines. Volume III, Europe 1880–1940, Part 1, ed. Peter Brooker et al., OUP, 1528 pp., offers a historical overview of Swedish Literature 553 the Swedish-speaking modernist magazines during the 1910s, 20s and 30s, magazines that played a vital part in the development of Swedish modernism. Jimmy Vulovic, Reform eller revolt. Litterär propaganda i socialdemokratisk, kommunistisk och nationalsocialistisk press, Lund, Ellerströms, 293 pp., discusses the political struggle between social democracy, communism and national socialism in ‘literary propaganda’, i.e. propaganda material dressed up as literature, during the interwar period. V. studies literary and cultural journalistic texts in Swedish journals published by the three political movements, material that has previously not received much critical attention and that provides an arena for studying the political use of literature. He discerns a struggle over socialism, a struggle over the definition of culture, and a struggle over the children, as all three political movements published journals directed towards children. Torbjörn Forslid et al., ‘Att förhandla litterärt värde. Sami Said och Väldigt sällan fin’, TidLit, 3–4:121–34, offer a study of how literary value is created and negotiated in Sweden today, through a case study of the evaluation of Sami Said’s debut novel of 2012. The authors study the evaluation process empirically, discussing how different agents claim values and positions in relation to the book and to each other. They also promote the value of empirical research and to ‘follow the object’, i.e. the book, in an ethnographical manner. Inge Jonsson, Samfundet De nio 1913–2013. Hundra år av stöd till svensk litteratur, Stockholm, Norstedt, 535 pp., is a history of the literary society De nio during its first century. Though written as an internal history, the detailed account nonetheless offers a contribution to the Swedish history of literature. The same is true of Johan Svedjedal, Bland litteraturens förenade nationer. Kring Svenska PEN-klubbens historia, Stockholm, Wahlström & Widstrand, 253 pp., which covers the history of the Swedish PEN Club, from the early foundation in 1922 and up to c. 1960. ‘Det universella och det individuella’. Festskrift till Eva Hættner Aurelius, ed. Kerstin Bergman et al., Gothenburg, Makadam, 300 pp., is a wide-ranging collection of articles that cover areas like Birger Sjöberg, autobiographical writing, and history of literature. Thomas Götselius ‘Självfram- ställning och självhermeneutik i Emanuel Swedenborgs journal 1743–44’ (93–102) studies the representation of the self in Emanuel Swedenborg’s journal. Marie Löwendahl (137–44) discusses the letter writing of Hedvig Charlotta Nordenflycht, and Rikard Schönström (185–94) relates the poetry of Göran Printz-Påhlson to the provincialism of the university town of Lund. Tal, makt, vansinne. En vänbok till Ulf Olsson, ed. Thomas Götselius et al., Höör, Symposion, 236 pp., offers a wide range of short articles on literature, from Jesper Swedberg to Tove Jansson. Le Nord à la lumière du Sud. Mélanges offerts à Jean-François Battail, ed. Sylvain Briens and Martin Kylhammar, Deshima, Hors-Série 3, 235 pp., includes entries on Swedish literature: on Dag Hammarskjöld’s relation to French literature and on the French translations and connections to France of August Strindberg, Selma Lagerlöf, and Eyvind Johnson. Themes and motifs. Amelie Björck, ‘Ansikte mot ansikte. Om etiska kortslutningar i mötet mellan människor och apor — och om skönlitterära motarbeten’, Edda, 1:15–29, discusses man-ape relations in five Swedish literary works. Amelie Björck, ‘Metaforer och materialiseringar. Om apor hos Vladimir Nabokov och Sara Stridsberg’, TidLit, 1:5–20, elaborates on one of the examples and makes a thought-provoking reading of Sara Stridsberg’s novel Darling River in relation to Nabokov’s Lolita, which Stridsberg’s novel is written in dialogue with. By focusing the relations between man and ape — used metaphorically and in passing by Nabokov, more overtly and materially by Stridsberg through the passages about the ape Ester — B. captures a central ethical theme in Stridsberg’s novel which resonates with the novel’s rewriting of the relation between Lolita and her perpetrator. Helena Bodin, Ikon och ekfras. Studier i modern svensk litteratur och bysantinsk estetik, .

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