Gunnar Ekelöf
Gunnar Ekelöf | |
|---|---|
 Gunnar Ekelöf | |
| Born | 15 September 1907 Stockholm, Sweden |
| Died | 16 March 1968 (aged 60) Sigtuna, Sweden |
| Occupation | Poet |
| Nationality | Schweden |
| Period | 1932–1968 |
| Literary movement | Modernism, Surrealism |
| Notable works | |
| Spouse | Gunnel Bergström (1932) Gunhild Flodquist (1942–1951) Ingrid Flodquist |
Bengt Gunnar Ekelöf (15 September 1907, Stockholm – 16 March 1968, Sigtuna) was a Swedish poet and writer. He was a member of the Swedish Academy from 1958 and was awarded an honorary doctorate in philosophy by Uppsala University in 1958. He won a number of prizes for his poetry.
Life and works
Gunnar Ekelöf has been called Sweden's first surrealist poet. He made his debut with the collection sent på jorden ("late on earth") in 1932, written during an extended stay in Paris in 1929–1930, which was too unconventional to become widely appreciated and described by its author as capturing a period of suicidal thoughts and apocalyptic moods.[1] It was in a sense an act of literary revolt akin to Edith Södergran's Septemberlyran of a dozen years earlier. While not disavowing his debut, Ekelöf moved towards romanticism and received better reviews for his second poetry collection, Dedikation (1934). Both the volumes are influenced by surrealism and show a violent, at times feverish torrent of images, deliberate breakdown of ordered syntax and traditional poetic language and a defiant spirit bordering on anarchism ("cut your belly cut your belly and don't think of any tomorrow" runs the black humorous refrain of a poem called "fanfare" in sent på jorden; a collection that eschews capital letters). This defiant externalism was grounded in his person. Though he came from an upper-class background, Ekelöf had never felt committed to it – his father had been mentally ill and when his mother remarried, Ekelöf strongly disapproved of his stepfather, and by extension of his mother; he had become a loner and a rebel by his teens and would never feel at ease with the mores of the established upper and middle classes or with their inhibitions and what he perceived as their hypocrisy and back-scratching.[2] Swedish critic Anders Olsson described Ekelöf's turn to poetry as a choice of "the only utterance that doesn't expurge the contradictions and empty spaces of language and of the mind."[3]
Färjesång (1941), showed influence from T.S. Eliot, whose poem East Coker Ekelöf had translated to Swedish. It took influence from oriental poetry and the darkness of the ongoing Second World War.[4] This was followed by the prose book Promenader (1941, "Walks"), the disillusioned[4] Non Serviam (1945) (its Latin title meaning "I will not serve") and Om hösten (1951, "In autumn"). This last included the well-known[4] poem "Röster under jorden" ("Underground voices").[4] In Strountes (1955), from Swedish "strunt" ("nonsense"), Ekelöf returned to his attacks on literary conventions, exploring meaninglessness. With his continual wordplay, he demonstrated that meaning can emerge from apparent nonsense.[4]
In April 1958 Ekelöf was elected a member of the Swedish Academy, succeeding author Bertil Malmberg on chair 18 in December the same year.[5] En Mölna-elegi ("A Mölna Elegy", 1960), a lengthy elegy Ekelöf had began composing already in the 1930s, was a highly personal collection of free associations, moods and memories featuring intertextual references to Emanuel Swedenborg, Carl Michael Bellman, August Strindberg, Edith Södergran, and others. The poems deal with the Proustian theme of memory and has been called Ekelöf's most Joycean work.[4] Ekelöf's last works, Dīwān över Fursten av Emgión (1965), Sagan om Fatumeh (1966) and Vägvisare till underjorden (1967) was a trilogy with Byzantine theme.[4] He died on 16 March 1968. His ashes were scattered in a river in Turkey.[4]
Legacy
He is remembered as one of the first Surrealist poets of Sweden.
On the 103rd anniversary of his birth, 40 Swedish poetry enthusiasts gathered in Salihli, Turkey. Together with the deputy mayor they honored Ekelöfs legacy in the city, which he came to admire ardently on a visit in 1965 and portrayed in several poems. In his will he expressed his wish to be cremated and his ashes spread over the Sard stream in Salihli. A bust of Ekelöf by Gürdal Duyar was to have been placed there, but this was never done and it now waits in the garden of the Swedish Embassy in Istanbul.[6][7][8]
Selected bibliography
In Swedish
- Sent på jorden "late on earth", poems (1932) (title in lower case lettering; this is retained in all reprints)
- Fransk surrealism "French Surrealism", translations (1933)
- Dedikation "Dedication", poems (1934)
- Hundra år modern fransk dikt "100 Years of Modern French Poetry", translations (1934)
- Sorgen och stjärnan "The Sorrow and the Star", poems (1936)
- Köp den blindes sång "Buy the Blind Man's Song", poems (1938)
- Färjesång "Ferry Song", poems (1941)
- Promenader "Walks", essays (1941)
- Non serviam "Non Serviam", poems (1945)
- Utflykter "Excursions", essays (1947)
- Om hösten "In Autumn", poems (1951)
- Strountes "Nonsense", poems (1955)
- Blandade kort "Shuffled Cards", essays (1957)
- Opus incertum "Opus Incertum", poems (1959)
- En Mölna-elegi "A Mölna-Elegy", poem (1960)
- Valfrändskaper "Elective Affinities", translations (1960)
- En natt i Otocac "A night in Otocac", poems (1961)
- Diwan över fursten av Emgión "Diwan on the Prince of Emgion", poems (1965)
- Sagan om Fatumeh "The Tale of Fatumeh", poems (1966)
- Vägvisare till underjorden "Guide to the Underworld", trans. Rika Lesser, poems (1967)
- Partitur "Score" (poems and drafts from his final year) (1969)
- Lägga patience "Solitaire Game", essays (1969)
- En självbiografi "An Autobiography", miscellaneous (1971)
- En röst "A Voice", sketches, diary notes, poems (1973)
A collected volume of Ekelöf's poetry, Dikter ("Poems"), was published by Mån Pocket in 1987.
In English
- Selected Poems of Gunnar Ekelöf, translated by Muriel Rukeyser and Leif Sjöberg, (New York: Twayne Publishers, 1967)
- Late Arrival on Earth: Selected Poems, translated by Robert Bly and Christina Paulston,(London: Rapp & Carroll, 1967)
- I Do Best Alone at Night, translated by Robert Bly and Christina Paulston, (Washington: The Charioteer Press, 1968)
- Selected Poems, translated by W. H. Auden and Leif Sjöberg, (New York: Pantheon Books, 1971)
Ekelöf made some substantial re-edits of the text and sequence of poems in later collected editions and anthologies of his work, especially relating to his 1930s books.
References
- ^ Lundkvist, Martinsson, Ekelöf, by Espmark & Olsson, in Delblanc, Lönnroth, Göransson, vol 3
- ^ Carl Olof Sommar Gunnar Ekelöf: en biografi, Albert Bonniers förlag 1989
- ^ A. Olsson, "Ekelöfs nej" (Ekelöf's No), Mälden mellan stenarna, Stockholm 1981; the point is elaborated in his 1983 Ekelöf monograph of the same name.
- ^ a b c d e f g h "Gunnar Ekelöf". authorscalendar.com. 2017.
- ^ "Ekelöf, Gunnar". Svenska Akademien.
- ^ "İsveçliler, ünlü şairleri Ekelöf ü Salihli de andılar". KAZETE. 16 September 2010. Archived from the original on 1 September 2017. Retrieved 1 September 2017.
- ^ KAYAOGLU, TURHAN (2 April 1994). "Ekelöf byst i Sardes". dn.kultur. Retrieved 1 September 2017.
- ^ Dragomanen (PDF), Visby: Svenska Forskningsinstitutet i Istanbul & Föreningen Svenska Istanbulinstitutets Vänner, 2014, p. 14, archived from the original (PDF) on 18 September 2018, retrieved 1 September 2017
Sources
- Gunnar Ekelöf. 2004.
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External links
- The Gunnar Ekelöf society homepage (in Swedish)
- Petri Liukkonen. "Gunnar Ekelöf". Books and Writers.
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