Lindegren, Erik 1910–1968

PERSONAL: Born August 5, 1910, in Luleå, Sweden; died May 30, 1968, in Stockholm, Sweden; married, wife's name, Karin (an art historian). Education: Attended the University of Stockholm.

CAREER: Poet, editor, librettist, translator, and literary critic.

AWARDS, HONORS: Bellmanpriset, 1958.

WRITINGS:

POETRY

Posthum ungdom (title means "Posthumous Youth"), Bonnier (Stockholm, Sweden), 1935.

Mannen utan väg (title means "The Man without a Way"), Bonnier (Stockholm, Sweden), 1946.

Sviter (title means "Suites"), Bonnier (Stockholm, Sweden), 1947.

Dikter, 1942–1947, Bonnier (Stockholm, Sweden), 1953.

Vinteroffer (title means "Winter Sacrifice"), Bonnier (Stockholm, Sweden), 1954.

Dikter, Bonnier (Stockholm, Sweden), 1960.

Dikter, 1940–1954; ett urval. Vår tids lyrik, Bonnier (Stockholm, Sweden), 1962.

(With Gunnar De Frumerie) Fyra sanger, Gehrmans (Stockholm, Sweden), 1979.

TRANSLATOR

(With Karl Vennberg) T. S. Eliot, Mordet i katedralen (translation of Murder in the Cathedral), Bonnier (Stockholm, Sweden), 1939.

(With Erik Mesterton) T. S. Eliot, Cocktailpartyt (translation of The Cocktail Party and Sweeny Agonistes), Bonnier (Stockholm, Sweden), 1950.

(With Antonie Somma) Giuseppe Verdi, Maskeradbalen. Opera i tre akter, Bonnier (Stockholm, Sweden), 1958.

Rainer Maria Rilke, Duinoelegierne, introduction by Artur Lundkvist and Jacob Steiner, Bonnier (Stockholm, Sweden), 1967.

W. H. Auden, Bestigningen av F6 (play; translation of The Ascent of F6), Bonnier (Stockholm, Sweden), 1969.

Graham Greene, Makten och härlighten (translation of The Power and the Glory), Pan/Norstedts (Stockholm, Sweden), 1973.

Also translated Giuseppi Verdi's Un ballo in maschera, 1950, and Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart's Don Giovanni, 1961.

OTHER

(Editor, with Karl Gunnar Vennberg) 40-tals lyrik, Bonnier (Stockholm, Sweden), 1947.

(With Karl Birger Blomdahl) I speglarnas sal. Nio sonetter ur Mannen utan väg (sonatas), Schott (London, England), 1955.

(Author of libretto) Karl-Birger Blomdahl, Aniara. En revy om människan i tid och rum. Opera i 2 akter (7 scenbilder) (based on the work by Harry Martinson), Schott (New York, NY), 1959.

Dag Hammarskjöld, Norstedts (Stockholm, Sweden), 1962.

(Author of libretto) Herr von Hancken. Oper in drei Akten (based on a novel by Hjalmar Bergman), Associated Music Publishers (New York, NY), 1965.

(With Folke Holmér and Egon Östlund) Halmstadgruppen: Waldemar Lorentzon, En bibliografi utarbetad av Folke Sandgren, edited by Folke Sandgren, Bonnier (Stockholm, Sweden), 1971.

Tangenter. Recensioner och essäer i urval, Bonnier (Stockholm, Sweden), 1974.

(With Karl Gunnar Pontus Hultén) Halmstadgruppen, 50 år, Stiftelsen Halmstadgruppen, Civilen (Halmstad, Sweden), 1979.

Operakritik, edited by Johan Stenström, photographs by Enar Merkel Rydberg, Ellerström (Lund, Sweden), 1994.

Also librettist for Pastoralsvit by Karl-Birger Blomdahl, and for the ballets Sisyfos, Minotaurus, and Riter by Birgit Åkeson. Contributing editor to Bonniers Litterära Magazin; editor of Prisma (literary magazine), 1948–50.

Lindegren's works have been translated into Norwegian, Czech, French, Spanish, Italian, and German.

SIDELIGHTS: Swedish poet Erik Lindegren was one of the most influential poets of modern Swedish literature. His important works include Mannen utan väg and Sviter. Despite his now-recognized accomplishments, the poet's career did not start out successfully. He never graduated from college, and, according to Laurie Thompson in Essays on Swedish Literature from 1880 to the Present Day, no publisher in Sweden wanted to accept Mannen utan väg. Although Lindegren finished the collection of poems in 1940, after facing many rejections he privately printed two hundred copies in 1942. The volume did not find a publisher until 1946. Therefore, the first collection of Lindegren's verse to appear was Posthum ungdom, a book he would later view as an embarrassment. When Mannen utan väg finally made its way to the public, Lindegren was dismissed by critics as "insane," according to his wife, Karin, in an interview with Åsa Beckman in Bonniers Litterära Magasin.

Lindegren began his career as a literary reviewer for major Swedish newspapers and magazines, and from 1948 to 1950 was the editor of the avant-garde Swedish journal Prisma. This periodical was, according to Bengt Emil Johnson in Bonniers Litterära Magasin, legendary among literary circles. As editor, Lindegren sought to promote connectedness between different forms of art and to present Swedish artists who aspired to achieve new directions in art. Throughout his career, Lindegren was a fervent reader of other authors' works. He made notable translations from English into Swedish of works by British poet and critic T. S. Eliot, English dramatist William Shakespeare, American novelist William Faulkner, and English writer Graham Greene. He also translated into Swedish the French poetry of Saint-John Perse, Paul Éluard, and Paul Valéry.

Considering the prominence of Lindegren's poetry in Swedish literary history, he produced few volumes of verse. Lindegren's wife, Karin, talked to Beckman about her husband, describing the poet and man behind the public image. When asked by the interviewer whether Lindegren stopped writing verse because he had succumbed to his own high ambitions in reaching for the sublime, Karin Lindegren said that this was partly true. It was, however, also due to Lindegren's great love for the literature, music, and art created by others.

Lindegren saw Mannen utan väg as a reaction to contemporary global events. The collection was written in the spring and summer of 1940, a time when violence, treason, and brutality had reached a climax. To convey a feeling of utter disorientation, Lindegren chose to develop a form that he called "exploded sonnets." Mannen utan väg consists of forty such sonnets; within the strict form of the sonnet, a cascade of images and associations flow with great force from his verse. Thompson described the collection's relationship between form and content in the following way: "Confusion is central to Mannen utan väg: the form is inseparable from the content and demonstrates how traditional conventions (the sonnet) must be radically revised ('exploded') in order to accommodate the poet's message, just as modern society has to be radically transformed in order to cope with the possibilities and abuses now within the scope of mid-twentieth century man. Logical thought has proved inadequate to solve the dilemma, and Lindegren gives central importance to imagery, the progression of which is achieved by associations."

When Lindegren wrote Mannen utan väg, he was inspired by French symbolist and surrealist poetry and painting. He was also inspired by music. Johnson argued that Lindegren's poetry in general has much in common with music at many levels. Lindegren's paternal grandfather, Johan Lindegren, was a composer and music teacher who, according to Johnson, was a master contrapuntist—someone who follows the rules of counterpoint, whereby two or more melodies are combined simultaneously. He was an inspiration for Lindegren, who learned early in life to play the piano. Johnson described Lindegren's poetic language as "contrapunctic" in its intention to express complex feeling. He also argued that many metaphors and symbols in Lindegren's poetry stem from the poet's deep interest in music. Birgitta Steene, writing in Books Abroad, similarly noted the musical quality of Lindegren's work: "What Lindegren develops with greater and greater skill is a musical quality, suggested in the very title of his volume Sviter ("Suites"). His ability to juxtapose and synthesize opposites is as remarkable as ever—a synthesis which is its own paradoxical self-combustion."

Lindegren listened to the classics, but he was also influenced by jazz, blues, and more experimental music. Hungarian composer Béla Bartók and Russian composer Igor Stravinsky were of particular interest to him. According to Johnson, Lindegren himself saw the title of Vinteroffer as a reference to Stravinsky's Spring Sacrifice. Johnson commented that Lindegren's "exploded sonnets" in Mannen utan väg were inspired by the blues; while using a simple and strict form, the blues is able to convey strong and complex feelings, which Lindegren found in the broken sonnet to mirror the contemporary mood and spirit.

Sviter is a sequence of short pieces of varying character similar to a verse version of baroque musical suites. The moods of the collection span between a deep-felt, almost loving preoccupation with death (set off by the introductory poem about Shakespeare's tragedy Hamlet) and a humorous approach to life's absurdities. Sviter is more accessible to readers than Mannen utan väg, and other poets have sought to imitate it. The poem "Arioso" has been particularly appreciated for its musical qualities. Vinteroffer, however, has been seen as Lindegren's most personal collection of poetry. While making use of classical Greek mythology and employing imagery related to winter, the text expresses themes of loneliness, aging, and death. Johnson pointed out that, as in music, the pauses are of the utmost importance, the stillness of winter is an integral part of the composition.

Lindegren's interest in music also found direct expression in his work as a librettist. He cooperated with Karl-Birger Blomdahl to create the operas I speglarnas sal. Nio sonetter ur Mannen utan väg, Pastoralsvit, Aniara. En revy om människan i tid och rum. Opera i 2 akter (7 scenbilder), and Herr von Hancken. Oper in drei Akten, which are, according to Johnson, milestones in Swedish music history. He also worked across genre boundaries, exploring the relationship between poetry, music, and dance, when he wrote the librettos for Birgit Åkeson's ballets Sisyfos, Minotaurus, and Riter.

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

BOOKS

Nielsen, Hans Bekker, editor, Nordisk Litteraturhistorie: En bog til Brøndsted, Odense University Press (Odense, Denmark), 1978.

Scobbie, Irene, editor, Essays on Swedish Literature from 1880 to the Present Day, University of Aberdeen (Aberdeen, Scotland), 1978.

PERIODICALS

Bonniers Litterära Magasin, Volume 59, number 3, 1990, Karl Vennberg, "Mina möten med Erik Lindegren," pp. 136-141, Åsa Beckman, "Dikternaär inga marmorblock. Interview med Karin Lindegren," pp. 143-147, Erik Beckman, "Arm i arm med ekot av Erik Lindegren," pp. 156-157, Bengt Emil Johnson, "Eolsharpa och kosmiskt brus. Anteckningar om det 'musikaliska' i Erik Lindegrens poesi," pp. 158-165, Rut Hillarp and Birgitta Holm, "Dagen efter," pp. 167-169, and Konny Isgren, "Än hyllar döden livet," pp. 170-173.

Books Abroad, winter, 1975, Birgitta Steene, "Erik Lindegren: An Assessment," pp. 29-32.

Mosaic, Volume 2, number 4, 1969, Ronald Bates, "On Translating Some Northern Poetry," pp. 87-94.

Scandinavica, May, 1992, Alan Swanson, "Södergran and Aniara: A "New' Poem by Edith Södergran," pp. 43-51.