The Sad Story of Aleksis Kivi (né Unsettled Childhood and Youth, Stenvall) (1834-1872) 1846-1859 ► Palojoki, Nurmijärvi Parish ► Unsettled Childhood and Youth Colorful relatives ► Sailor grandfather ► Tailor father ► Stenvall, the Student ► “Matti the Robber” Uncle ► Three brothers and a sister, of ► From Stenvall to Kivi which youngest boy Legendary childhood as “king of the playground” ► The Prolific Poet, 1864-1871 the playground” The Prolific Poet, 1864-1871 ► Taught to read at age six, by the Parish dean ► Nummisuutarit (The Heath Cobblers, 1864) ► Sent to school in Helsinki, 1846 Acquisition of literary Swedish ► The Seven Brothers (Seitsemän veljestä, 1870) Lodger at Palmqvist family home ► Library ► Reception of Seven Brothers ► Daughter ► Impoverished student’s marriage ► Sickness Unto Death proposal rejected, 1853 ► Independent studies lead to completion of secondary school, 1859 Palojoki Village (Kimmo Pälikkö 1998)
Stenvall, the Student From Stenvall to Kivi
► Amidst student politics 1859- 1863 Fennomane movement ► Editorial assistant ► Powerful patrons Fennomane opponents ► August Ahlqvist ► Indigenous or Imitative art? Svecomane romanticism Director Jari Halonen’s cinematic Aleksis Kivi ► Indifferent student No bureaucratic ambitions ► Literary field Literary passion J.L. Runeberg August Ahlqvist (Oksanen) Kullervo (1859) August Ahlqvist (Oksanen) Julius Krohn (Suonio) University area, Helsinki, circa 1900 ► Personality Personality ► Moves in 1864 to Siuntio under the wing of benefactress, Charlotta Nervous Lundqvist Laconic ► Emergence as committed, professional writer Ascetic ► Period of relative peaceful production Self-critical Financial security Prone to drinking bouts Typhoid fever
1 Nummisuutarit The Prolific Poet, 1864-1871 (The Heath Cobblers, 1864) ► Fourteen works in seven years ► Five Acts ► Kullervo Five Acts 1860 literary prize from SKS Classical models Breakthrough Ludvig Holberg (1684-1754) Hope attached to Kivi ► Esko’s comical but honest Opposition because of style attempts at marriage ► 1866: two plays and a poetry 1866: two plays and a poetry ► Buffoonish father collection The often adapted Nummisuutarit, ► Drama, poetry, and a novel… ► Domineering mother first made by Suomi Filmi, 1923 ► What was Kivi’s style? ► Complex Esko Deftly inventive linguistically… Linguistically clever Yet folksy and humorous Faithful and loyal language Honest Deeply aware of literary models A little bit dumb ► Shakespeare ► Tragicomic combination ► Cervantes Albert Edelfelt’s death-mask drawing ► Hollberg of Kivi, 1873 Remade in color by Suomi Filmi, 1957
Seitsemän veljestä Reception of the Seven Brothers (Seven Brother, 1870) ► Project undertaken over a decade ► “The work is laughable, a disgrace in Finnish literature. In decade particular, it mean-spiritedly denigrates the Finnish folk, ► First novel in Finnish while the author’s depictions appear as though mimicking ► Picaresque models nature. Nowhere is the Finnish folk like this—as the heroes Cervantes’ Don Quixote Schiller’s Robber dramas of this novel. The folk is serious and restrained, which has Schiller’s Robber dramas tilled the unforgiving Finnish soil. The Finnish people are of ► Peculiar novel Dramatic dialogue a different nature than Impivaara’s denizens.” A. Ahlqvist, Kivi played for comedy: Seitsemän Dramatic dialogue 1871 veljestä in the theater, 1951 Collective focus Renaissance novel ► Defense by Snellman, who empasizes freedom and self- ► Breadth definition of the brothers ► Humor ► Style Finnish Literature Foundation politics ► Realism How should money be spent to foster a national literature ► Romanticism What kind of literature should be supported? ► Lyrical fantasy ► Novel of education Kivi as cultural savior, Jari Halonen’s (Bildungsroman) cinematic Kivi, 2001 ► Enormous linguistic richness
2 Sickness Unto Death
► Kivi broken by Alqvist’s attack on the novel Internment “Damaged literary pride” diagnosed Schizophrenia ► Released into brother’s care, dying in a rental cabin owned by him Cabin in which Kivi died, Tuusula ► Rural theaters perform Kivi ► Literary rediscovery Eino Leino Väinö Linna ► The Scholars write their histories ► Rehabilitation of the national writer and first novelist Kivi statue, in front of national theater, Helsinki
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