Sweden has a tradition of women's literature that began in the late Middle Ages with the saint Birgitta.
Swedish Women Writers
In the West, the women's writing movement developed especially strongly from the late 60s and early 70s of the 19th century.
Sweden has a female literary tradition that began in the late Middle Ages with the saint Birgitta (1303-1373). She was of noble birth, the daughter of a lawyer who had compiled the law, and was well educated. She married at a young age; her husband was a nobleman and a lawyer with a high position in the court. She was also at court, but was very religious and loved to read.
She and her husband went on a pilgrimage to the famous church of Santiago de Compostela in Spain. Shortly after her husband died, she became deeply involved in religious life and began to experience visions and ecstasies. She asked the priests who heard her confessions to write down what they felt during ecstasies. She planned to found a convent for women at Vadstena, but the king refused, but she received permission from the Pope.
Before her death, she made a pilgrimage to the Holy Land in Jerusalem. She was buried in Vadstena; it became a pilgrimage site and cultural center during the Middle Ages. She was canonized in 1391.
The work Revelationes celeste was written in Latin, like other wise works of the Middle Ages, which made Saint Birgitta immortal in literature. The scribes were all learned Catholic priests, and only a few manuscripts were written by her own hand.
Researchers have confirmed that the content is recorded exactly as she read it, and that she herself reread it to correct the text. The Revelations - considered to have come from the mouths of Jesus, the Virgin Mary, or the Apostles - include words of advice, consolation, and repentance; the author often mentions contemporary social, religious, and political events, often in symbolic forms.
Her writing style is sometimes polemical when criticizing the Pope or the King; it is often realistic and raises issues of women in daily work, motherhood, and community life, alongside formulaic symbolism. Saint Birgitta is classified as one of the most famous mystical religious writers in medieval Europe.
300 years later, when Sweden became a great power in the second half of the 17th century, Queen Kristina made the country shine in terms of culture and art. Many foreign writers and scholars came to the Queen's court. Later, she abdicated the throne, following the call of her faith, moved to Rome and converted to Catholicism. There, she also became a central figure in contemporary culture and art in Europe. Her rare surviving works reflect a complex soul, between joy and loneliness. Her works in Rome include aphorisms written in French in the style of the French writer La Rochefoucauld; these words speak of faith in God and express a worldview free of illusions, a unique life and personality of a former queen.
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| Writer Fredrika Bremer. |
In the 19th century, around 1830, the female writer Fredrika Bremer was a pioneer in building a realistic middle-class novel in Sweden. She became a leader of the women's liberation movement because her works focused on women. She was also prestigious abroad.
F. Bremer (1801-1865) came from a Finnish-Swedish family, who emigrated to Sweden in her childhood. She received a progressive but essentially patriarchal education in art and culture. Most of her works opposed this male-dominated tendency.
After a series of Sketches of Daily Life, she became famous for her novel The H. Family (1830-1831); a realistic work imbued with the humanitarian and idealistic spirit of romanticism and Christian mysticism. She promoted a harmonious family life, considering it a "miniature homeland". The Neighbors (1837) praised her mother's prestigious family. The Home (1839), although still promoting the family, called for the liberation of women from patriarchal shackles, and that daughters should be educated to love their careers and have an independent position in the home.
Her works were translated into foreign languages and were popular in many countries in the late 19th century. She addressed the issue of sexuality, encouraged the creation of utopian socialist collectives, the basis for establishing a kingdom of eternal peace. Some of her ideas were included in the programs of the Social Democratic parties.
Bremer applied Balzac's realist techniques to her most famous work, Hertha (1856). Hertha is a young woman who rebels against her patriarchal family, her authoritative father, who dehumanizes the rest of the family. The end of the story suggests a more democratic future in which all, especially women, are free to develop their individuality. These demands, so commonplace today, provoked heated discussions. Hertha was the name of the women's movement's newspaper.
Bremer traveled to America, Rome, Palestine, Greece, Switzerland, Italy; her travelogues reflect a mind inclined to investigate social problems, the fate of women, and her contribution to society in general is greater than to literature. Today, her novels are no longer considered great classics. But she did set an example for women writers; following in her footsteps, a number of hitherto forgotten women writers brought Swedish literature to the world's attention in the second half of the 19th century.
(To be continued)
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