Oskar Levertin
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Oscar Ivar Levertin (17 July 1862,
Norrköping Norrköping ( , ) is a city in the province of Östergötland in eastern Sweden and the seat of Norrköping Municipality, Östergötland County, about 160 km southwest of the national capital Stockholm, 40 km east of county seat Lin ...
– 22 September 1906) was a Swedish poet,
critic A critic is a person who communicates an assessment and an opinion of various forms of creative works such as Art criticism, art, Literary criticism, literature, Music journalism, music, Film criticism, cinema, Theater criticism, theater, Fas ...
and
literary historian The history of literature is the historical development of writings in prose or poetry that attempt to provide entertainment or education to the reader, as well as the development of the literary techniques used in the communication of these pie ...
. Levertin was a dominant voice of the Swedish cultural scene from 1897, when he started writing influential high-profile essays and reviews in the daily paper ''
Svenska Dagbladet (, "The Swedish Daily News"), abbreviated SvD, is a daily List of Swedish newspapers, newspaper published in Stockholm, Sweden. History and profile The first issue of appeared on 18 December 1884. During the beginning of the 1900s the pap ...
''. From 1899 until his early death in 1906 he also occupied the first chair of literary history at the
Stockholm University Stockholm University (SU) () is a public university, public research university in Stockholm, Sweden, founded as a college in 1878, with university status since 1960. With over 33,000 students at four different faculties: law, humanities, social ...
, in which role he published extensive studies, particularly in Swedish 18th century literature.


Overview

In his own short story collections in the 1880s, Levertin first aligned himself with the
Naturalist Natural history is a domain of inquiry involving organisms, including animals, fungi, and plants, in their natural environment, leaning more towards observational than experimental methods of study. A person who studies natural history is cal ...
school of fiction of which
August Strindberg Johan August Strindberg (; ; 22 January 184914 May 1912) was a Swedish playwright, novelist, poet, essayist, and painter.Lane (1998), 1040. A prolific writer who often drew directly on his personal experience, Strindberg wrote more than 60 pla ...
was the most prominent member. In 1888, however, the previously unheard Swedish romantic poetic voice of
Verner von Heidenstam Carl Gustaf Verner von Heidenstam (6 July 1859 – 20 May 1940) was a Swedish poet, novelist and laureate of the 1916 Nobel Prize in Literature. He was a member of the Swedish Academy from 1912. His poems and prose work are filled with a great j ...
's ''Vallfart och vandringsår'' changed Levertin's stylistic ideals. Levertin and Heidenstam published together a pamphlet attacking the Naturalist style in 1890, and even though Levertin was never to abandon his
scientific Science is a systematic discipline that builds and organises knowledge in the form of testable hypotheses and predictions about the universe. Modern science is typically divided into twoor threemajor branches: the natural sciences, which stu ...
and
materialist Materialism is a form of philosophical monism according to which matter is the fundamental substance in nature, and all things, including mental states and consciousness, are results of material interactions. According to philosophical materia ...
view of history (something that sets him off from other poets of his generation), his literary energies were thenceforth channelled into poetry of a romantic, exotic and historical character. Together with Heidenstam's work, Levertin's first collection of poetry, ''Legender och visor'' (''Legends and Songs'') (1891), sparked an 1890s Swedish fashion for historical, particularly "
medieval In the history of Europe, the Middle Ages or medieval period lasted approximately from the 5th to the late 15th centuries, similarly to the post-classical period of World history (field), global history. It began with the fall of the West ...
", literature. Unlike Heidenstam's and much other Swedish poetry of the 1890s, ''Legender och visor'' is free from Swedish
nationalism Nationalism is an idea or movement that holds that the nation should be congruent with the state. As a movement, it presupposes the existence and tends to promote the interests of a particular nation, Smith, Anthony. ''Nationalism: Theory, I ...
, drawing on many European as well as Middle Eastern sources. This volume remains highly regarded today, though no longer widely read. Poems from it, including the ballad "Flores och Blanzeflor", remained set texts in Swedish schools into the 1970s.


In culture

Levertin is depicted as Olof Levini in
Hjalmar Söderberg Hjalmar Emil Fredrik Söderberg (2 July 1869 – 14 October 1941) was a Swedish novelist, short story writer, playwright and journalist. His works often deal with melancholy and lovelorn characters, and offer a rich portrayal of contemporary Stoc ...
's 1912 novel ''Den Allvarsamma Leken'' ('' The Serious Game'').


Bibliography

*''Från Rivieran: skisser från Medelhavskusten'' (1883) *''Småmynt'' (1883) *''Konflikter: nya noveller'' (1885) *''Pepitas bröllop'' (with Verner von Heidenstam) (1890) *''Legender och visor'' (1891) *''Diktare och drömmare'' (1898) *''Rococo-noveller'' (1899) *''Magistrarne i Österås'' (1900) *''Svenska gestalter'' (1903) *''Kung Salomo och Morolf'' (1905)


See also

* Flores and Blancheflour


References


External links

* * Listen to a free MP3 recording of Wilhelm Stenhammars music to Levertins poe
Vårnatt
with

{{DEFAULTSORT:Levertin, Oscar 1862 births 1906 deaths People from Norrköping Jewish Swedish writers Writers from Östergötland County Swedish-language poets Academic staff of Stockholm University 19th-century poets 19th-century Swedish male writers