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.