The 20th century

The development of the novel was associated with Gustaf Hellström, Sigfrid Siwertz, Ludvig Nordström, and Elin Wägner. Hellström’s work as a journalist in Europe, the United States, and England greatly influenced him. Irony and careful detail emerged in his best-known novel, Snörmakare Lekholm får en idé (1927; Lacemaker Lekholm Has an Idea). Siwertz was a more elegant stylist, and a decisive influence upon him was the philosophy of Henri Bergson, as reflected in En flanör (1914; “An Idler”); but his weightiest work was a family saga, Selambs (1920; Downstream), a novel of Stockholm during World War I. Nordström, overflowing with vitality and keen but grotesque humour, accomplished some of his best work in Landsorts-bohème (1911; “Small-Town Bohemia”) and in his short stories—for example, Fiskare (1907; “Fishermen”). Wägner was an ardent pacifist and feminist; her most powerful work was a peasant novel, Åsa-Hanna (1918). The outstanding Swedish novelist of the 1920s was Hjalmar Bergman; with vivid imagination and restless energy, Bergman wrote a long series of stories, many set in “Wadköping” (his native Örebro) and others in Italy. In Loewenhistorier (1913) he depicted an irrational, impulsive, unsuccessful hero; in Farmor och vår Herre (1921; Thy Rod and Thy Staff) he portrayed one of the dominating female personalities that fascinated him. The satiric novel Markurells i Wadköping (1919; God’s Orchid) and the play Swedenhielms (performed 1925), one of the few Swedish comedies, were his most widely known works.

Meanwhile, the “proletarian” novel had been developed by writers concerned with the miseries of the working class, particularly Martin Koch and Ivar Lo-Johansson. There was particularly harsh criticism of working-class conditions in stories by Jan Fridegård. Vilhelm Moberg wrote novels of peasant life but achieved his greatest success with a four-volume prose epic about a group of Swedes who immigrate to North America—Utvandrarna (1949–59; The Emigrants), Invandrarna (1952; Unto a Good Land), Nybyggarna (1956; The Settlers), and Sista brevet till Sverige (1959; “The Last Letter Home”; the last two vol. also published in part in English translation as The Last Letter Home). The development of the Swedish autobiographical novel was helped by Eyvind Johnson, with the series Romanen om Olof (1934–37); Harry Martinson, with Nässlorna blomma (1935; Flowering Nettle) and Vägen ut (1936; “The Way Out”); and Agnes von Krusenstjerna. In her novel cycles—the Tony trilogy (1922–26) and the Fröknarna von Pahlen series (1930–35)—Krusenstjerna described her own aristocratic environment. Martinson was one of a group of five primitivist writers formed about 1930. He later developed into one of the finest lyricists of the century. Sensuous imagery and a feeling for nature characterize his work. He attempted to revive the verse epic in his Aniara (1956), a symbolic story of a spaceship’s doomed voyage. Martinson shared the Nobel Prize for Literature with Johnson in 1974.

The Swedish writer who was best known internationally during the 20th century was Pär Lagerkvist. In his youth a bold innovator, he later developed a prose style of distinct clarity, as in the allegorical novel Dvärgen (1944; The Dwarf). His collections of poems—such as Ångest (1916; “Anguish”)—and early plays—for instance, Himlens hemlighet (1919; “The Secret of Heaven”)—were expressionistic in style. The dominant theme throughout Lagerkvist’s work is a search for vital, often outspokenly religious values. He won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1951.

Development of lyric poetry

Several of the best Swedish writers were connected with the development of lyric poetry. One of the most notable, Vilhelm Ekelund, was in his youth the chief exponent of Symbolism in Sweden and later, as an author of aphorisms, exerted much influence on the development of literary modernism. Among the most popular poets were Dan Andersson, Birger Sjöberg, and Hjalmar Gullberg. In Gullberg’s poetry, religious commitment and classical learning are balanced by irony and wit. A more esoteric style in modernism was introduced by Bertil Malmberg and developed by the group of poets referred to as the generation of the 1940s, which included Erik Lindegren and Karl Vennberg. Stylistically influenced by American-English poet T.S. Eliot, they often expressed an anguish and disbelief that approached French existentialism. Lindegren’s Mannen utan väg (1942; The Man Without a Way) was typical of this generation’s search for meaning in life. The most distinguished novelist of the 1940s was Lars Ahlin, who was concerned with humankind’s search for grace through love and humiliation in works such as Min död är min (1945; “My Death Is Mine”).

The greatest lyric poet of the century was Gunnar Ekelöf. His first collection of poems, Sent på jorden (1932; Late Arrival on Earth), was heralded as the first specimen of Surrealism in Swedish literature. Ekelöf’s later development passed through successive phases of Romanticism and antipoetic skepticism that resulted in a trilogy (1965–67) blending autobiography with Eastern mysticism.