Poetry
Guitar and Concertina
Guitarr och dragharmonika
Gustaf Fröding · 1891
Opening lines
Två grannar jag har i min boning
– den ene är sentimental
– jag hör honom högt deklamera
om sorg och lifvets kval.
I have two neighbours in my dwelling;
one of them is sentimental,
I hear him loudly declaiming
of sorrow and life's torment.
Translation by Erostrate
Text quoted from litteraturbanken.se
Synopsis
The opening poem gives the book its title and its form: two moods, two instruments. To the guitar belong the grave and sombre pieces, to the concertina the light and funny ones. There follow airs from Värmland, where people dance by the roadside on a Saturday night to the sound of Nils Utterman's concertina, with Bolla, the beautiful girl from Takene who has nothing in her pocket, “whims and ruminations”, among them a ghazal, impressions and landscapes, and a final section of miscellaneous pieces, partly in the Värmland dialect.
Context
The author finished the manuscript at Görlitz, where he was being treated in 1889 and 1890, and the ghazal in the collection takes its setting from the clinic at Suttestad, near Lake Mjøsa. He published this first book only with great hesitation, in 1891, with Bonnier, and it brought him a rapid popularity of unusual scale; a third edition appeared as early as 1896. It was followed by two other books in 1894 and 1896, which together with it make up the core of his work. Charles Wharton Stork gave an English translation of it in 1926, and a facsimile of the original edition appeared in 1989.
Who it is for
A collection of about one hundred and eighty pages, in Swedish, part of it written in the Värmland dialect; an English translation exists, none in French.
Prizes and reception
The debut collection that made its author one of the best-loved poets in Swedish literature.
Sources for this page 7
The pages consulted to check this page.