Erik Axel Karlfeldt
(1864-1931)
Swedish poet, master of rhyme and meter, who gained fame with his regional,
tradition-bound poetry. Internationally unknown Karlfeldt won the Nobel Prize
for Literature posthumously in 1931 - he had refused the honor in 1918 on the
grounds of his position as a secretary of the Nobel Committee, and because of
the high proportion of Swedish writers who had already received the award.
Although Karlfeld's works were widely read in his country, he has also been
called one of the most misunderstood writers. He was familiar with French
symbolism, used its literary devices, but found his subjects from the
traditional rural way of life.
Jag var ej mogen, jag var ej värdig,
ty nog jag lidit och nog jag njutit,
men ett står kvar, förr'n en man är färdig:
att skapa lycka ur vad han brutit.
(from 'Sjukdom')
Erik Axel Karlfeldt was born Erik Axel Eriksson in Folkärna in the rural
province of Dalarna, central Sweden. His father, Erik Erson, was a lawyer.
Anna Jansdotter, Karlfeldt's mother, was a devout Lutheran. Christian images
also became part of the the poet's lyrical world. Shortly after entering the
University of Uppsala, Karlfeldt's father suffered a financial ruin, and died
soon after. In 1889 Erik Axel started to use the name Karlfeldt. While
supporting himself as a teacher, Karlfeldt completed his university studies
and graduated in 1902. He worked as a librarian at the Academy of Agriculture
at Stockholm from 1903 to 1912 and secretary of Swedish Academy from 1912;
since 1904 he had been its member. 'Till en sekreterare' is Karlfeldt's self-ironic
poem on the appointement.
Karlfeldt's early works were influenced by Gustaf Fröding and the popular
movement in Sweden which idolized simple life in the countryside. As a writer
he started his career with VILDMARKS- OCH KÄRLEKSVISOR (1895), a group of
romantic lyrics, which did not gain much attention. In these poems Karlfeldt
depicted milieu, in which literature or academic learning did not play
significant role. The collection is opened by 'Fäderna', a homage to his rural
traditions. Vildmarks was followed by so-called Fridolin collections,
FRIDOLINS VISOR (1898) and FRIDOLINS LUSTGÅRD (1901). Fridolin, the title
character, served as the poet's alter ego and his ideal - a fictionalized
bachelor poet who returns to his rural heritage. "My muse dwelleth not on
Parnassus, / Her home is on Purse-Maker's Nest. / Like sunset the cheek of the
lass is, / When eve soothes the valley to rest." (from 'Prelude' to Fridolin's
Pleasure-Garden, trans. by Charles W. Stork) Although a simple peasant,
Fridolin displayes deep learning. He discusses with peasant as a peasant, but
uses latin with scholars.
Another figure, 'Löserkarlen' (The Vagrant), represented uprootedness, another
side of the poet, for whom the death of his father had been a shock. 'Dalmålningar'
was inspired by naïve church paintings from his home region in Dalarna. 'Häxorna'
series was based on a witch trial, which also the Nobel writer Eyvind Johnson
described in his book Drömmar om rosor och eld. In England Aldous Huxley used
the same French source in The Devils of Loudun (1952).
Karlfeldt's lyrics are characterized by purposely archaic style and influences
from folklore and custom. Old names and words appear frequently in his poems,
as in 'Nattyxne'. The title refers to a species of orchids (Butterfly Orchid),
which was considered an aphrodisiac and was used in love potions. "Öfver dig,
yxne, älskogsört, / susade Veneris flyende skört, / daggen som lopp af den
hvita foten / göt dig i roten / sin vårliga vört." Karlfeldt was especially
interested in Swedish baroque poetry - a period during which Sweden enjoyed
the position of an European superpower. Dominating themes are nature and love,
as in general in poetry at that time. FLORA OCH POMONA (1906) contains his
most enduring work, in which the love themes and the nature motifs are deeply
interwoven. Karlfeldt's use of concrete images to express an emotion or an
abstract concept owed much to ideas developed by French Symbolist poets. In
his last collection of verse, HÖSTHORN (1927), Karlfeldt took his subjects
from the past and his rural background, expressing in 'Höstpsalm' his
reconciliation of life and death.
Vem är du och var kommer du ifrån?
-Det vill jag och kan jag ej säga.
Har intet hem, är ingen mans son,
ej hem eller son kall jag äga.
Jag är en främling fjärranväga.
In FLORA AND BELLONA (1918) Karlfeldt enlarged his themes - often poets write
about experiences that are personal and universal at the same time, but in
this collection he referred to contemporary issues. Bellona in the title of
the book was the goddess of war. The figure was far from the usual attributes
of Sweden - a neutral country during World War I. Karlfedt's darkening mood
was not born from his war experiences. The values of industrial civilization,
urbanism, dynamism, the cult of speed, which the Italian futurists extolled,
and radio and jazz music, made him feel uncomfortable with his own time. "I am
a stranger from far away," he once wrote. Karlfeldt rejected Communism and
American materialism and saw that his world is doomed: "O Fridolin, din sång
är tömd / och dömd och glömd också." Some critics did not approve Karlfeldt's
deeply-rooted conservatism and pessimism, and he eventually lost his contact
with modern literary trends. Although Karlfeldt was often restricted in
expressing his inner feeling, he revealed his religious belief in the poem 'Sjukdom'
(Sickness) in Flora och Bellona. He had been seriously ill in 1913, which made
him study his beliefs more confessionally than in the earlier works.
In 1916 Karlfeldt married Gerda Ottilia Holmberg; they had four children. The
marriage also calmed his vagrant soul, but he still remained a recluse,
avoiding publicity. Karlfeldt published relatively little journalistic
writings and he did not participate in contemporary literary discussion,
except through his poems. Among his prose works are his funeral address for
the Swedish poet Gustaf Fröding, and Nobel Prize presentation address to
Sinclair Lewis. Karlfeldt died in Stockholm on April 8, 1931. His poetry have
not been translated widely, although in Nordic countries his poems have
appeared in different anthologies. The Finnish composer Jean Sibelius has set
to music one of Karlfeldt's poems, 'Fridolins dårskap'. In 1938 Charles Warton
Stork translated a selection of his verse under the title Arcadia Borealis.
The literary association, Karlfeldt-samfundet, have published studies on his
works.
For further reading: Anthology Of Swedish Lyrics From 1750 To 1915 by Charles
W. Stork (1917); Bibliska motiv i Karlfeldts diktning by Aron Borelius (1922);
Erik Axel Karlfeldt by T. Fogelqvist (1931, 2nd edition 1940); Karlfeldt och
fädernas tro by Erik Fries (1942); Karlfeldts livsproblem by Jacob Kulling
(1943); Vårgiga och hösthorn by Klas Wennerberg (1944); Dalmålningar by Svante
Svärdström (1944); Det folkliga och det förgångna i Karlfeldts lyrik by Jöran
Mjöberg (1945); Lejonets barn by Ingvar Högman (1945); A History of Swedish
Literature by A. Gustafson (1961); Sub luna och andra Karlfeldtessäer by Karl-Ivar
Hildeman (1966); Karlfeldt - synpunkter och värderingar, ed. by Majt Blanck
(1971); En löskekarl by Karl-Ivar Hildeman (1977), Dikter till och om
Karlfeldt by A Bergstrand (1978); Columbia Dictionary of Modern European
Literature, ed. by Jean-Albert Bédé and William B. Edgerton (1980); På
Karlfeldts vägar I-III (1982-83); Meter, rytm och ljudgestaltning i bunden
vers by Ulf Malm (1985); Erik Axel Karlfeldts bibliografi by Nils Afzelius, 2
vols. (1974-1989); Den svenska litteraturen: den storsvenska generationen, ed.
by Lars Lönnroth and Sven Delblanc (1989); Den svenska literaturhistorien by
Göran Hägg (1996); Five Swedish Poets of the Nineteenth Century, ed. and
trans. by Judith Moffett (2001)
Selected works:
* VIDMARKS- OCH KÄRLEKSVISOR, 1895
* FRIDOLINS VISOR, 1898
* FRIDOLINS LUSTGÅRD, 1901
* FLORA OCH POMONA, 1906
* SKALDEN LUCIDOR, 1912
* FLORA OCH BELLONA, 1918
* C.F. DAHLGREN, 1923
* HÖSTHORN, 1927
* SAMLADE VERK, 1931
* Why Sinclair Lewis Got the Nobel Prize, 1931
* TANKAR OCH TAL, 1932
* KARLFELDTS UNGOMDIKTING, 1934
* Arcadia Borealis: Selected Poems of Erik Axel Karlfeldt, 1938 (trans. and
introduction by C.W. Stork)
* ERIK AXEL KARLFELDTS DIKTER, 1943, 1950, 1963, 1986
* KARLFELDT - DALMÅLAREN, 1974 (ed. by Svante Svärdström)
* ERIK AXEL KARLFELFT, 1974 (ed. by Nils P. Sundgren)
* SAMLADE DIKTER, 1981
* SAMLADE DIKTER, 2001 (ed. by Johan Stenström)