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Erik KarlfeldtSwedish poet, Nobel Prize in Literature, 1931
Date of Birth: 20.07.1864
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Eric Axel Karlfeldt - Swedish Poet, Nobel Prize in Literature, 1931
Eric Axel Karlfeldt, a Swedish poet, was born in Folkerna, Dalarna. His ancestors were farmers, and his father, Erik Ersson Karlfeldt, was a self-taught lawyer. His mother, Anna Jansdotter, married his father after becoming a widow. Karlfeldt's childhood years were peaceful in the quiet rural area of Central Sweden. However, shortly after Eric enrolled at Uppsala University, his father went bankrupt, had to sell the family estate Tolfmansgorden, and soon passed away. Karlfeldt supported himself by giving private lessons and only completed his university studies in 1902. After working as a teacher for a year, he obtained a position as a librarian at the Royal Swedish Academy of Agriculture in Stockholm.
In 1895, Karlfeldt released his first of six poetry collections, "Songs of the Wild Nature and Love" ("Vildmarcks – och karleksvisor"). Like most of his works, these poems described peasant life in Dalarna, with mystical undertones in reference to the pagan past of Swedish peasantry. Karlfeldt's poetry, ethnographically specific, deeply lyrical, and traditional in spirit, expressed nostalgia for a simple life and peasant culture that was gradually disappearing due to increasing industrialization and urbanization in Sweden. His poetic collections "Fridolin's Songs" (1898) and "Fridolin's Pleasure Garden" (1901) were named after Fridolin, the lyrical hero who represented the author himself. Through this character - a half-poet, half-peasant - Karlfeldt spoke about himself as a person who "communicates with peasants in vernacular and with educated people in Latin." His collection "Fridolin's Pleasure Garden" included a cycle of poems called "Dalarna Wall Paintings" ("Dalmalningar, utlagda pa rim"), which were the most original verses of the poet, describing traditional folk paintings on biblical and mythological subjects that adorned the walls of peasant houses. Although Karlfeldt never stopped writing about Dalarna, his poetry evolved to become more mature, gradually becoming more complex and ambiguous in mood, sometimes even dark.
In 1904, Karlfeldt was elected to the Swedish Academy, and in 1907, he became a member of the Nobel Committee for Literature. In 1912, he was appointed the permanent secretary of this committee. While holding this position, he was offered the Nobel Prize several times, but Karlfeldt refused, citing his status in the Academy and his relative lack of recognition outside Sweden. He was the first to decline the award.
Karlfeldt rarely wrote prose, and one of his few prose works was an obituary for Swedish poet Gustaf Fröding, who passed away in 1911, and a speech given when awarding the Nobel Prize to Sinclair Lewis in 1930. In his homeland, Karlfeldt was highly regarded, but he was relatively unknown outside Sweden. His poems are difficult to translate, mostly due to the abundance of colloquial idioms and archaisms that convey the speech of Swedish peasants. In 1916, Karlfeldt married Gerda Holmberg, a woman twenty years younger than him, and they had two children.
Karlfeldt passed away suddenly in 1931. Six months after his death, the Swedish Academy voted to award him the Nobel Prize in Literature. Nathan Söderblom, a member of the Swedish Academy and the Archbishop of Uppsala, actively campaigned for Karlfeldt to receive the prize. The decision of the Academy caused widespread dissatisfaction, particularly in Sweden, so it had to be reminded that according to the rules of the Nobel Prize, posthumous awards are possible if the candidate was nominated before the laureate's death. As a result, the Nobel Prize was awarded to Karlfeldt's family. In his speech, Anders Österling, a member of the Swedish Academy, said, "In an era when handcrafted items are a rarity, the masterfully refined language of Karlfeldt's verses holds a special, if you will, high moral significance. Particularly appealing is the fact that the poet, who drew his inspiration mainly from a disappearing past, is profoundly non-traditional in his means of expression; he is a bold innovator, while the modernists often content themselves with transient language fashions."
Alrik Gustafson, an American literary scholar, defined Karlfeldt's contribution to literature as follows: "Karlfeldt is one of the greatest Swedish poets. His poems are characterized by thoughtfulness and refinement, solid yet exceptionally figurative mastery... Karlfeldt's poetic style is largely traditional, but it is a unique tradition." Charles Wharton Stork, an American translator, wrote in 1940: "Like no other Swedish poet, Karlfeldt is close to the land and the people... Despite his erudition, his constant themes were the earth and the sky."
Currently, Karlfeldt is unknown to the world outside of Sweden, and his poems are practically inaccessible. Critics rarely pay attention to him.