Poetry
Wenerid
Not translated into English
Skogekär Bärgbo · 1680
Synopsis
One hundred and one sonnets addressed to a woman named Wenerid, of whom the collection says only the name. From the first sonnet, the speaker says he is suddenly wounded by the arrows of the little god, who never rests from shooting, and he asks where to find peace and where to flee. The collection then follows, sonnet after sonnet, a melancholy and unanswered love, in the form that Petrarch in Italian and Ronsard in French had illustrated.
Context
The title page says it itself: written more than thirty years ago, now printed at Stockholm, in 1680. The sonnets date from the second half of the 1640s, in the circle of Christina's court. A preface announces the wish to show the aptitude of Swedish for the sonnet rhyme, which Petrarch and Ronsard honoured. Lars Gustafsson read in it an occasional piece, published in the year of the royal wedding of 1680. Lars Burman produced the critical edition in 1993; Anne Marie Bjerg translated it into Danish, with a preface by Horace Engdahl.
Who it is for
One hundred and one sonnets in the language of 1680; the 1993 critical edition is annotated, and the original text can be read online.
Prizes and reception
The best-known work of the pseudonym, at the heart of an attribution mystery three centuries old, reissued and translated into Danish.
Sources for this page 8
The pages consulted to check this page.