To Örebro University

The Swedish author Lars Englund (1917-1959) was an appreciated poet in the 1940s and 50s, but according to contemporary works in literary history, he almost seems to be forgotten. The aim of this study is to call attention to his short poems by close reading. Besides, I also discuss authors and traditions that were important to Englund, and I read his poetry in comparison with literary movements in his days. Among the subjects discussed are also the question whether he was chiefly a modernist or a romantic poet.   

His poems often start with a view of a northern landscape. It can be the sea with seagulls at a distance and a sandy beach. The sun is rising in an early summer morning. In other poems he describes such as blooming trees or bushes in summer evenings with darkness very slowly coming. A loved one is often present.  

I propose that Englund is a writer whose poems often start with realistic descriptions like these, but they often widen or open to some suggested transcendence and a significant silence without being entirely symbolic.     

He surely appreciates the romantic tradition, but he has learned a lot from the modernist movement, not least from the early modernists in Finland, who were writing in Swedish. In his free verse he is fully aware of the importance of rhythm and typography to emphasize the semantic meaning.

In this essay, I propose that teachers should be made aware of the value of positive reading experiences and recognize these experiences as the basis for literature education. Indeed, pupils’ reading experiences should be placed in the foreground, and ideas relating to literary form should be considered mainly in relation to examples of how passages from the literary work are, say, moving or thrilling.

The essay is not based on empirical data, but on my long and varying experience as a teacher, researcher and literary critic. I draw on researchers and authors who explain what makes reading valuable.

One such value that I emphasise is that readers sometimes seem to meet their own selves in literary works, but also that which is different or new. The individual perspective can be broadened or transformed after reading texts that seem unfamiliar in some ways. Such experiences, I argue, have intrinsic values, and so do strong feelings of pleasure or consolation that literature stimulates.

Moreover, the personal and the social are intimately linked. I emphasize that in order for literature to become an even more important part of a social world, politicians as well as teachers must realize that literature lessons must be more than instruments for descriptors, marks or exams. When it comes to teaching and learning, quality is determined by what happens in the classroom, and not by objectives stipulated in national or local documents. 

Pär-Yngve Andersson,”All dödlighets sång och skrian”: Studier i Sven Rosendahls naturprosa (The song and scream of all mortality: Studies in the nature writing of Sven Rosendahl)

Sven Rosendahl (1913-1990) was an author of novels as well as of various books about landscape and animals. However, his nature writing has not been devoted much attention by critics or literary scholars. Rosendahl himself expressed at many times his dissatisfaction with this. This study is exclusively devoted to his nature writing, and the aim is thereby to fill a disturbing lacuna in Swedish literary research. Several of his most important books are analysed carefully, from Räven från Krackberget (1941) to Från himmelens fåglar… (1968). Major importance is attached to analyses of style and narrative technique, and issues concerning genres and borders between fact and fiction in this kind of nature writing are discussed. I also refer to researchers in environmental literature and philosophers interested in experiences of nature. Detailed lyrical description is regarded as a kind of basis in Rosendahl’s artful language, but his nature writings are at the same time existential literature. Man is clearly seen as a part of nature, but seems to be the only specie conscious of its own mortality. The author is considering man’s place in this world, among all the other species. Confidence in nature’s reiteration is played off against the mortality of the individual. In later parts of the authorship, his awareness about environmental pollution is clearly evident. It even threats the genre of nature writing itself.

I en tid där förmågan att konstruera exakta målskrivningar och välformulerade betygskriterier förefaller dominera många utbildningsdiskussioner, och där frågan om anställningsbarhet ses som central av många, verkar litteraturen ha svårt att motivera sin existens som ett frirum för den enskilde.   

I den här framställningen argumenteras för att skönlitteraturens betydelse ofta undandrar sig alla välmenta försök till fixering och kategorisering. Relevanta listor på litteraturens olika förtjänster har upprättats av många, men enligt min uppfattning finns ett värde i att resonera på ett något annorlunda sätt.       

Presentationen bygger inte på ett avgränsat empiriskt material, men vill visa hur skönlitteraturläsningen kan svara mot djupt personliga behov hos läsare i olika åldrar. Dessa behov behöver inte generaliseras, men kan vara av avgörande betydelse för den enskilde. Därigenom kan läsningen få en indirekt verkan i ett större socialt sammanhang.       

Stöd hämtas från en mängd utsagor av forskare, kritiker och författare. Det argumenteras också för en undervisning där läsaren på olika sätt tränas i att öppna sig för verkets tilltal, och där den konstnärliga texten alltid betraktas som något mer än ett symptom på sin samtids uppfattningar. ”Litteraturen gör liksom konsten motstånd mot tidens arrogans – gör oss sömnlösa i rutinens salar”, skriver kritikern James Wood.       

Läsupplevelsen ses som central i den didaktiska situationen, men ingen motsättning finns mellan detta och uppfattningen att undervisning om litteraturens olika verkningsmedel behöver förstärkas. Olika former av instrumentalisering av skolläsningen måste dock med kraft motarbetas om skönlitteraturen ska kunna bli en positiv upplevelse för allt fler. Detta ses som särskilt viktigt för elever som kommer från hem utan lästraditioner.