Terms of Divergence: The Vocabularies of Pär Lagerkvist's Ångest and Artur Lundkvist's Glöd
[In the following essay, Sondrup considers the influence of Lagerkvist on the poetry of Artur Lundkvist.]
Ich weiß nicht, ob Ihnen unter all dem ermüdenden Geschwätz von Individualität, Stil, Gesinnung, Stimmung und so fort nicht das Bewußtsein dafür abhanden gekommenist, daß das Material der Poesie die Worte sind. …
(Hugo von Hofmannsthal, Poesie und Leben, 1896)
The publication in 1916 of Pär Lagerkvist's collection of poetry entitled Ångest (Angst) marks a decisive turning point in the history of modern Swedish literature. The power and intensity with which the poet evoked his agony were without parallel, and his strident Modernism pointed toward new areas of human experience accessible to poetic exploration. Lagerkvist was dramatically turning his back on the subtly nuanced and often melancholy world of his immediate predecessors—Ola Hansson and the young Vilhelm Ekelund, for example—and following in the footsteps of Baudelaire and Strindberg, while drawing inspiration from cubist aesthetics and Marinetti's futurist invectives. The title of the collection and the selection of “Ångest, ångest är min arvedel” (“Angst, angst is my inheritance”) as the first poem were by no means fortuitous.1 Lagerkvist had just experienced a personal crisis and was acutely aware of the suffering and loss that were so tragically part of the First World War. But beyond those personal considerations, the title and the poem reveal Lagerkvist's intent in no uncertain terms:
Ångest, ångest är min arvedel,
min strupes sår,
mitt hjärtas skri i världen.
(p. 5)
(Angst, angst is my inheritance,
my throat's wound,
my heart's cry in the world.)
These lines at once allude to, and dramatically undermine, two prominent poets identified with neo-romantic refinement and verbal musicality. “Arvedel” is a word strongly associated with Karlfeldt, as in the poem “Längtan heter min arvedel” (“My inheritance is called yearning”).2 In Lagerkvist, though, it is not the romantic longing—längtan—that is the poet's inheritance but rather anguish and anxiety. Heidenstam had, similarly, written of “vår andes stämma i världen” (“our spirit's voice in the world”), which in Lagerkvist's poem is transformed into “my heart's cry in the world.”3 The voice, presented in terms that are rich in romantic and musical associations, becomes the anguished cry of the heart. In the first sentence of the poem, Lagerkvist, thus, calls some of the most significant aspects of Swedish neo-romantic literature to mind and, by means of slight alterations that do not obscure the aesthetic presence of the tradition, subverts it and turns it against itself. Precisely because he willfully and intentionally misreads his predecessors and uses their most characteristic modes of expression against them, it is abundantly clear that romantic longing is not his heritage and that his world is not animated by melodious whisperings, but rather punctuated by shrieks and cries.4
Just over ten years later, Swedish poetry came to another turning point that was again signalled by the publication of a poet's first collection of poems. Although this change of direction was not as abrupt and radical as that occasioned by the appearance of Ångest, the publication of Artur Lundkvist's debut volume, Glöd (Embers), had far-reaching ramifications.5 In that volume, Lundkvist gave expression to his youthful exuberance, vitality, and joie de vivre. In forceful language and lusty imagery he celebrated life as an absolute value. The question of Lundkvist's relationship to his predecessors is certainly as interesting as that of Lagerkvist's, but it does not admit of such an immediate and unambiguous answer. The list of those who contributed in a variety of ways to the young Lundkvist's development includes—among others—Walt Whitman, Nietzsche, Carl Sandburg, Henri Bergson, D. H. Lawrence, Diktonius, Södergran, and Lagerkvist himself. And it is Lundkvist's relationship to Lagerkvist that is, perhaps, the most interesting and the most challenging.
That Lagerkvist had a profound influence on Lundkvist cannot be denied. Lundkvist recalls that his first reading of Lagerkvist was in 1923; Lundkvist was then sixteen years old. In a study group and at a folk high school that Lundkvist attended in 1926-27, Lagerkvist was discussed in some detail.6 In a collection of literary essays published in 1933, Lundkvist describes Lagerkvist's pioneering efforts in the service of literary Modernism in approving and appreciative terms.7 More directly suggestive of the influence that Lagerkvist exerted on the young Lundkvist, however, is the refusal notice that Lundkvist received from Bonniers in 1926 for some prose poems. The note read, “Det är ju intet tvivel om att Ni är direckt påverkad av Pär Lagerkvist i så hög grad att en del av Edra saker nästan skulle kunna rubriceras som plagiat”8 (“There is, of course, no doubt that you are directly influenced by Pär Lagerkvist to so great a degree that a part of your works could well be considered plagiarism”). Critics and historians, however, have taken more circumspect and cautious positions, although they have by no means any sense of unanimity. Kjell Espmark, for example, tends to emphasize the similarities between the early works of both Lagerkvist and Lundkvist.9 Carl-Eric Nordberg, on the other hand, uses some of Lagerkvist's works and views as a point of departure in stressing Lundkvist's originality.10 For him it is, thus, the differences between the two poets that are the most revealing and significant. This is a position that had earlier been taken by Jöran Mjöberg in his Livsproblemet hos Lagerkvist, wherein he referred to Lundkvist's Glöd as a polemic against Lagerkvist, based particularly on Lundkvist's belief that to search for a metaphysical meaning of life beyond life itself was futile.11
Divergent though these assessments are, they are not by any means irreconcilable. Lundkvist himself, writing much later from the perspective of a mature and seasoned poet, pointed to aspects of his lyric development that may well serve to provide the grounds for a resolution of these seemingly contradictory views. In an address delivered in 1977 on the occasion of his having been awarded the Struga International Poetry Prize, Lundkvist described his relationship to Swedish as well as foreign poetry. Speaking in general terms, he explained that he had always worked “både med och i viss mån också mot den omgivande svenska poesin” (“both with and to a certain extent against prevailing Swedish poetry”).12 In the abstract, this description is not particularly noteworthy: poets typically both draw inspiration from their native traditions as well as develop new and original modes of thought and expression. Lundkvist's observation, however, should not be taken as a mere platitude, but rather as a serious and remarkably specific description of his attitude toward Swedish poetry: he has vigorously and energetically sought to promote certain important aspects of the Swedish lyric tradition but at the same time has enthusiastically opposed others. It is not a naive generalization to assert that his lyric oeuvre grew out of this dynamic tension between advocacy and opposition and that what is true of his poetry in general is also evident in individual works.
Glöd not only well illustrates this tension, but Lundkvist's productive fluctuation between affirmation and rejection also explains, in part, why some critics have maintained that he was drawing thoughts and images from Lagerkvist, while others have argued that he was engaging in a polemic against Lagerkvist. In point of fact Lundkvist was doing both: in this specific case, he was working both for and against what he inherited from Lagerkvist, just as he did with what he inherited from the tradition at large. And just as Lagerkvist's use of certain key words—arvedel and mitt hjärtas skri i världen—reveal much about his attitude to his predecessors, the words that Lundkvist selected tell, in and of themselves, a great deal about the specifics of his affirmation and rejection of Lagerkvist's thought and expression.
The way in which such words can be extremely revealing is, though, often overlooked. Poets, however, have long understood this revelatory power and have occasionally offered extremely penetrating descriptions of it. Valéry, for example, wrote of “des mots dont la fréquence, chez un auteur, nous révèle qu'ils sont en lui tout autrement doués de résonance, et, par consequent, de puissance positivement créatrice, qu'ils ne le sont en général.” Valéry is, thus, arguing that the words that an author uses most frequently will typically have special meanings for him and will have a particularly important creative potential. He then goes on to note that such words are “un exemple de ces évaluations personnelles, de ces grandes valeurs-pour-un-seul, qui jouent certainement un très beau rôle dans une production de l'esprit où la singularité est un élément de première importance.”13 And it is precisely in terms of these personal evaluations and great private values that the relationship of Lagerkvist to Lundkvist's early thought can well be observed.
It will surely not come as a surprise to anyone to learn that the three most frequently used words in both Lagerkvist's Ångest and Lundkvist's Glöd are, in alphabetical order, i (in), jag (I), and och (and) and that a variety of similar function words—en (a/an), som (which/that/who), med (with), är (is/are), det (the/it), men (but), ett (a/an), över (over/above/across), vid (at/by/near), etc.—follow.14 It is not until one examines substantive words—words that primarily carry meaning rather than perform grammatical functions, i.e., nouns, verbs, adjectives, and adverbs—that one observes the most noteworthy differences and similarities.
The most frequently used substantive words in Ångest, for example, are those that might have been expected: hjärta (heart), ångest (angst), mörkret (the darkness), världen (the world), blod (blood), hand (hand), mull (mold), händer (hands), jord (earth), barn (child/children), längtan (longing/yearning), natten (the night), ord (word), and rum (room). The most frequent verbs—aside from är (is/are), skall/skulle (shall/should), and vill (want)—are står (stand/stands), går (go/goes), stå (to stand), hör (hear/hears), leva (to live), and ser (see/sees); and the most used adjectives and adverbs are aldrig (never), nu (now), upp (up), lilla (little), när (near), and stort (big). Taken together, even without reference to the context of the poems from which they derive, they suggest a world that is full of anxiety, fear, darkness, and decay, a world that is threatening and hostile and can be met only with fear and impotence.
The vocabulary of Glöd is, in many ways, strikingly different. One notes immediately that it is more varied than that of Ångest: Lundkvist used a greater variety of words than Lagerkvist and, thus, did not tend to repeat individual words as frequently.15 He thereby achieved a greater sense of freshness and newness, both of which are in themselves important themes in Glöd. Conversely, the sense of a world that is closing in, which is central to Ångest, may be fairly well communicated by a relatively small and consequently repetitive vocabulary.
Lundkvist's dynamic and vital world is also forcefully evoked by the words he used. His most frequent nouns are händer (hands), livet ([the] life), ögon (eyes), dag (day), kvinnan (the woman), marken (the ground), morgonen (the morning), solen (the sun), träd (tree), ansikte (face), blommar (flowers), hand (hand), hunger (hunger), livets ([the] life's), ljus (light), stad (city), tankar (thoughts), hjärta (heart), fåglar (birds), kärlek (love), själ (soul), skogen (the forest), and träden (trees). The most common verbs are låt (let), kom (came), kommer (come/comes), sett (seen), går (go/goes), gick (went), lever (live/lives), and ligger (lie/lies); and his most often used adjectives and adverbs are ut (out), dår (there), under (under), upp (up), nära (near), ingen (no), stora (big), ung (young), blå (blue), borta (away), gamla (old), nya (new), unga (young), djupt (deep), and tunga (heavy). These words are indicative of a fascination—or, perhaps, an obsession—with vitality and activity, with a world full of light and natural marvels, a world that is youthful and alive.
It may appear that the two poetic universes represented here are antithetical and, perhaps, mutually exclusive. Such a conclusion is certainly not utterly without foundation. Lagerkvist's frequent use of mörkret and natten, for example, stands in telling contrast to Lundkvist's recurrent evocation of dag, morgonen, solen, and ljus. There are, however, important points of contact at which personal qualities and great private values—to speak in Valéry's terminology—come clearly into play and illustrate how and to what extent Lundkvist was working both with and against the expressionist tradition he inherited specifically from Lagerkvist.
Many different words and word complexes could be used as examples. Hjärta, though, serves especially well: it is the most frequently used substantive word in Ångest, and though not one of the words used most often in Glöd, it is well represented. In a manner reminiscent of Baudelaire, Lagerkvist reverses, in Ångest, the typical and frequently cliché-ridden romantic associations of the heart by using it in contexts that portray isolation, desolation, frustration, and anxiety.16 It is the heart that cries out to the cold and indifferent universe (pp. 5, 7); it is the heart that suffers and yearns in a foreign and inhospitable land. Blood also has similar associative connotations: it evokes horror, death, and base physicality.
In Glöd the situation is quite different. Lundkvist can create those settings and contexts in which the heart is associated with anxiety and suffering, but more typically, he does just the reverse. Lundkvist describes the heart that swells like a clinched fist with rejoicing blood (p. 16), the heart that grows strong and fills the breast (p. 34), or the heart that beats firmly as a token of life (p. 64). Blood, moreover, is used in a similar way. It courses powerfully through the veins (p. 64); it is the sign of youth and strength (p. 15); it is the source and essence of life. Lundkvist also mentions blood-red cries of joy (p. 5) and a blood-streaked tiger (p. 13), which represent power, energy, and force.
The case of the words hand and händer is similar. In Ångest, hands are described as bloody and crying (p. 5); they are little, weak, and empty (p. 51); they tremble and are lifted up toward heaven in prayer (p. 37). Hands metonymically represent the entire body or the whole person who is injured, impotent, frightened, and ill-prepared to face the terrors of the wide, wide world. In Glöd, hands are also frequently taken as a representation or symbol of the whole and occasionally suggest suffering and anxiety (p. 48). Far more frequently, however, they evince images of activity, work, vitality, and creativity. Hands, for example, caress the earth and make it blossom (p. 17); they hold the hand of the beloved (p. 48) or coax music from a wooden flute (p. 14); they reach up not to pray but to grasp pleasure and the fullness of life (p. 43); they are frequently powerful and full of life. Lundkvist's images of hands, thus, range from those that represent suffering and weakness, in a manner highly reminiscent of Lagerkvist's typical portrayal of them, to those far more frequent images that evoke youth, power, activity, and creativity. Lundkvist shows himself able to depict scenes characteristic of the expressionist concern with human pain and impotence in the face of the overwhelming power of a hostile universe but then moves beyond such depictions—or even rejects them—in his jubilant celebration of life and power.
One final example will even more forcefully show the poetic power of Lundkvist's reversal of Lagerkvist's images. References to the heart, to blood, and even to the hand abound in poetry as symbols of human emotion and activity, and thus, an examination of the relationship of these rather usual images in the works of Lagerkvist and Lundkvist may not seem particularly striking nor be able fully to reveal some of the unique qualities of their poetry. The image of mull (mold), however, is by no means commonplace either in traditional or contemporary poetry, but mull, with a frequency of use well above that of such poetic regulars as barn (child), längtan (longing), natten (the night), or stjärnor (stars), is one of the most commonly employed nouns in Ångest and, appearing as often as such words as kärlek (love) and själ (soul), is notably represented in Glöd. Rather than using mull in the more neutral sense of “earth,” Lagerkvist stresses those aspects of the word associated with “mold” by his frequent allusions to death, decay, darkness, dirtiness, and disease (pp. 43, 59, 64). There is, perhaps, nothing particularly arresting in these associations, because they seem to be what is generally identified with mold, but Lundkvist sees something different. For him mull connotes fertility and reproduction. Speaking poetically, as a tree, he celebrates the fact that at length he will die and become soil, out of which a new tree will grow, out of which the cycle of life will renew and perpetuate itself (p. 30).
In the short poem entitled “Millet”—an allusion to that painter's well known, but rather sentimental, representations of peasant life—mull seems, however, to have all the negative values typical of Lagerkvist's understanding of the word:
Mark och mull.
Tunga stenar.
Tistlar.
Människorna: jordens gråa trälar,
flämtande, färjagade [sic].
Livet: mull och svett.
Och till sist: dödens isiga rysning.
(p. 40)
(Ground and mold.
Heavy stones.
Thistles.
The people: the earth's gray slaves,
panting, colored.(17)
Life: mold and sweat.
And at last: death's icy shiver.)
Although life is said to be hard, and man in the end is said to experience the icy shudder of death, the poem continues and takes a sudden turn in the second stanza:
Ett drama.
Ett drama om kamp.
Men se: ljus slår upp ur marken
och blommar kring trälarna.
(p. 40)
(A drama.
A drama about struggle.
But see: light flares up out of the ground
and flowers around the slaves.)
While not denying the harshness of life, the conclusion points to its redeeming aesthetic value in the drama of struggle and the productivity of the land. The significance of this poem in this context lies in its illustration that Lundkvist's Lagerkvistian heritage is acknowledged and that his subsequent extensive development of his own original thought and modes of expression is not limited to the lexical level. Just as words work both with and against that part of the expressionist tradition emphasizing man's suffering and weakness, individual poems may simultaneously acknowledge and transcend that heritage. What is important to note here, however, is that this is accomplished, at least in part, in terms of the revaluation of an individual word. The poem opens by giving mark (ground) a bleak and pessimistic coloration through its association with mull, tunga stenar (heavy stones), and tistlar (thistles). In the last stanza, however, “the ground” is identified as the source of light and flowers. The attribution of personal values and connotations to an individual word thus forms the pivot around which the entire poem turns.
An even more dramatic example of this procedure is found in the third poem—untitled—in Glöd:
Himlen har blivit så låg, jorden mörk, livet hopkrympt, människorna nedböjda.
Himlen hänger tungt ner över oss som en grå presenning—vi
kravlar kring på buken, släpar oss i mullen, trevar över
varandras kroppar, mumlar och förbannar eller fnittrar
som kittliga skökor—
Låt oss sätta våra unga skuldror till och lyfta himlen upp!
Vi vill rymd över oss, luft att andas, plats att spänna bågar!
Kom, låt oss räta ut våra unga gyllene lemmar!
(p. 9)
(The sky has dropped so low, the earth dark, life hunched over, men bent down.
The sky hangs down over us, heavy, like a gray tarp—we
crawl around on our bellies, drag ourselves through the mold,
grope over one another's bodies, mumble and curse or giggle
like ticklish whores—
Let's put our young shoulders to task and lift up the sky!
We want space above us, air to breathe, a place to string bows!
Come, let's stretch out our young, golden limbs!)
In terms that could have come directly from Lagerkvist, the first two stanzas portray the oppressiveness and darkness of the world. The images concentrated in these two stanzas may in fact be understood as a rather direct allusion to Lagerkvist's view of the universe. The last two stanzas, with their invitation to aggressive action and energetic involvement, move, however, in an entirely new direction. They reflect the values that were central to Lundkvist's thinking at the time, the values associated with Primitivism and Vitalism. It should also be noted that the narrative strategy of this poem partially hinges on the shifting values of key words. In the opening lines, much of the force of the poem derives from the image of the low-hanging, oppressively heavy sky: himlen. This image is given special prominence by the fact that himlen is the first word in the first two stanzas and in both cases is followed by terms graphically evoking a sense of oppression. The result of this pressure from above is that the poetic voice and his compatriots must crawl and grovel. This image is centered on the pronoun vi (we): we crawl, we drag ourselves, we grope, we mumble and curse or giggle. In the last part of the poem, it is precisely these two terms—himlen and vi—that are recast and acquire new poetic weight. “The sky” becomes that which is lifted up, thus, presumably freeing the poet and all mankind. The “we” now require space, air to breathe freely, and room for dynamic and forceful action. The movement of the poem as a whole from oppressive dejection to jubilant freedom is clear, and the fact that this movement turns upon the changing poetic significance of these two words contributes to its power and makes it an all the more notable poetic achievement.
A lexical approach in which nothing has been said about larger structural questions, syntax, broader thematic matters, and many other potentially important considerations by no means exhausts the poems or fully explains their power and aesthetic significance. Such an approach does, however, provide important insights: just as Lagerkvist began his poetic career by alluding to the legacy from his immediate predecessors—Karlfeldt and Heidenstam—in order to subvert it, Lundkvist in his literary debut also evokes one of his masters in order to transcend his influence. Although such a strategy is certainly not unique to Lundkvist, he uses it so consistently and pervasively—on the level of vocabulary, the individual poem, and also the small cycle of poems within the collection—that critics have come to seemingly contradictory conclusions. Glöd can best be understood not in terms of either the influence of Lagerkvist on Lundkvist or Lundkvist's polemic against Lagerkvist, but rather both at once, i.e., by understanding the fact that Lundkvist was working both with and against the ambient tradition. Out of this vacillation between affirmation and subversion emerges yet another dynamic interrelationship. On the one hand, Lagerkvist has long been reputed to represent the pole of expressionist thinking associated with dejection and oppression, and, on the other, Lundkvist is identified with a jubilant and energetic mode of expressionist thought. Although these postures may seem antithetical, they are both supported by precisely the same words: e.g., hjärta (heart), blod (blood), hand (hand), and mull (mold). Each writer responds to these words in a highly personal way and gives them great private values—des grandes valeurs-pour-un-seul—which reveal his most profound concerns and the essence of his genius. From the same raw materials, Lagerkvist and Lundkvist have erected very different mansions. Ultimately, however, there is a unity underlying their surface variations and a multiplicity of individual possibilities in their lexical singularity.
Notes
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(Stockholm: Bonniers, 1966), p. 5. Future references will be given in the text.
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See Erik Hörnström, “Arvedelen,” Ord och bild, 54 (1945), 113-15. See Erik Hörnström, “Lagerkvist. Ångest, ångest är min arvedel,” Lyrisk tidsspegel, ed. Carl-Erik Geijerstam (Lund: Gleerups, 1948).
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Erik Hjalmar Linder, Ny illustrerad svensk litteraturhistoria. Fem decennier av nittonhundratalet, I (Stockholm: Natur och Kultur, 1965), 344. See Victor Svanberg, “Heidenstam och Lagerkvist. En studie i diktens sociologi,” Tiden, 2 (1941), 104-18, for a broad consideration of the relationship between Heidenstam and Lagerkvist.
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See Susan Brantly, “The Stylistic Legacy of Religious Literature in Pär Lagerkvist's Poetry,” Scandinavica, 22, No. 1 (May 1983), 47-68, for a penetrating discussion of Lagerkvist's subversion of biblical as well as other religious texts.
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(Stockholm: Bonniers, 1928). References will be given parenthetically in the text.
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Kjell Espmark, Livsdyrkaren Artur Lundkvist. Studier i hans lyrik till och med Vit man (Stockholm: Bonniers, 1964), pp. 25-30.
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Atlantvind (Stockholm: Bonniers, 1932), pp. 200-06.
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Cited by Espmark, p. 25.
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pp. 25-26.
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Det skapande ögat. En färd genom Artur Lundkvists författarskap (Stockholm: Bonniers, 1981). See, for example, pp. 15f. and 152f.
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(Stockholm: Bonniers, 1951), p. 44. Mjöberg in “Ekon av Pär Lagerkvist i samtida diktning,” Ord och bild, 50 (1941), 201-09, discusses the impact that Lagerkvist's early poetry had on subsequent poets. He mentions only briefly the relationship between Lagerkvist and Lundkvist.
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“Tal om poesi,” Artes, No. 3 (1979), p. 66. An English version translated by Steven P. Sondrup and Lars Nordström appeared in The International Portland Review 1980, pp. 10-11.
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Variété V (Paris: Gallimard, 1945), p. 318. Valéry was, though, by no means the first to make such observations. Baudelaire, for example, noted that one need only find which word or words are used most frequently in order to understand the soul of a poet. With specific reference to his contemporary Théodore de Banville, he concluded, “si je trouve dans ses oeuvres un mot qui, par sa fréquente répétition, semble dénoncer un penchant naturel et un dessein déterminé, j'aurais le droit de conclure que ce mot peut servir à caractériser, mieux que tout autre, la nature de son talent. …” See “Théodore de Banville,” Oeuvres complètes, Bibliothèque de la Pléiade (Paris: Gallimard, 1961), p. 735. These passages as well as others are discussed in some detail by Stephen Ullman, Meaning and Style (New York: Barnes and Noble, 1973), pp. 72-74.
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Information on word frequencies is based on computer-generated concordances and frequency-rank lists prepared at the Brigham Young University Humanities Research Center. For the purpose of this discussion “word” is understood as an orthographic unit. Although hand and händer, for example, might be considered simply different forms of the same word in other contexts, they are here discussed as separate and independent lexical items. General studies of word frequencies that employ a wide range of different models and methods have been carried on with regard to Swedish since the early decades of this century. See, for example, Olof Werling Merlin's word counts published in Stenografiens historia, 2 (1929), pp. 565-77. In more recent years, such studies have been substantially aided by the advent of computers and computational methods and have found a particularly hospitable home in Göteborg. See, in this regard, Martin Gellerstam's Goteborg doctoral dissertation from 1970 entitled “Jämförande vokabulärstudier i svensk morgonpress 1965” and Sture Berg's Göteborg licentiate thesis from 1970, “Homografi i nusvenska.” Språkdata, housed at the Institute for Linguistic Data Processing at the University of Göteborg and under the direction of Sture Allén, is without question the most important center for the statistical study of modern Swedish. See Sture Allén, Nusvensk frekvensordbok basesrad på tidningstext (Stockholm: Almqvist och Wiksell, 1970) and the series Rapporter från språkdata.
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Glöd contains a total of 5,898 words (tokens) and 2,079 different words (types). Of these 1,433 or 24.2٪ appear just once. Ångest, on the other hand, contains 3,685 total words and 1,196 different words; 757 words or 20.5٪ appear once. With adjustments having been made to account for the difference in length of the two works, the type-token ratio for Glöd is 0.40; for Ångest, it is 0.32.
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In his chapter on Lagerkvist in Själen i bild. En huvudlinje i modern svensk poesi (Stockholm: Norstedt, 1977), pp. 53-70, Kjell Espmark discusses many aspects of Lagerkvist's relationship to Baudelaire with particularly keen insight.
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The translation of the word färjagade is problematic. The word is derived from the noun färg (color) by way of the verb färga (to color). The -ade suggests a plural past participle modifying trälar. The expected form, however, would be färgade (colored). The cited form could, therefore, simply be taken as a misprint. If färjagade is to be taken as a corrupted form of färgade meaning colored, it is difficult, though, to understand in what sense the “gråa trälar” are colored. Another possible way of reading the line, which might avoid such difficulties, would be to take färjagade as a poetic neologism derived from färg + jagade, meaning hunted or pursued by color, i.e., devoid of color and, therefore, gray.
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