Johan August Strindberg was a Swedish playwright, novelist, poet, essayist, and painter. A prolific writer who often drew directly on his personal experience, Strindberg wrote more than 60 plays and more than 30 works of fiction, autobiography, history, cultural analysis, and politics during his career, which spanned four decades. A bold experimenter and iconoclast throughout his life, he explored a wide range of dramatic methods and purposes, from naturalistic tragedy, monodrama, and historical plays to his anticipations of expressionist and surrealist dramatic techniques. From his earliest work, Strindberg developed innovative forms of dramatic action, language, and visual composition. He is considered the "father" of modern Swedish literature and his The Red Room (1879) has frequently been described as the first modern Swedish novel. In Sweden, Strindberg is known as an essayist, painter, poet, and especially novelist and playwright, but in other countries he is known mostly as a playwright.
Mikhail Yevgrafovich Saltykov-Shchedrin, born Mikhail Yevgrafovich Saltykov and known during his lifetime by the pen name Nikolai Shchedrin, was a major Russian writer and satirist of the 19th century. He spent most of his life working as a civil servant in various capacities. After the death of poet Nikolay Nekrasov, he acted as editor of a Russian literary magazine Otechestvenniye Zapiski until the Tsarist government banned it in 1884. In his works Saltykov mastered both stark realism and satirical grotesque merged with fantasy. His most famous works, the family chronicle novel The Golovlyov Family (1880) and the novel The History of a Town (1870), also translated as Foolsburg, became important works of 19th-century fiction, and Saltykov is regarded as a major figure of Russian literary Realism.
British literature is from the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, the Isle of Man, and the Channel Islands. This article covers British literature in the English language. Anglo-Saxon literature is included, and there is some discussion of Latin and Anglo-Norman literature, where literature in these languages relate to the early development of the English language and literature. There is also some brief discussion of major figures who wrote in Scots, but the main discussion is in the various Scottish literature articles.
Georg Morris Cohen Brandes was a Danish critic and scholar who greatly influenced Scandinavian and European literature from the 1870s through the turn of the 20th century. He is seen as the theorist behind the "Modern Breakthrough" of Scandinavian culture. At the age of 30, Brandes formulated the principles of a new realism and naturalism, condemning hyper-aesthetic writing and also fantasy in literature. His literary goals were shared by some other authors, among them the Norwegian "realist" playwright Henrik Ibsen.
Le Rouge et le Noir is a historical psychological novel in two volumes by Stendhal, published in 1830. It chronicles the attempts of a provincial young man to rise socially beyond his modest upbringing through a combination of talent, hard work, deception, and hypocrisy. He ultimately allows his passions to betray him.
Oscar Ivar Levertin was a Swedish poet, critic and literary historian. Levertin was a dominant voice of the Swedish cultural scene from 1897, when he started writing influential high-profile essays and reviews in the daily paper Svenska Dagbladet.
The Surrealist group in Stockholm is a Swedish group of surrealists. It has been criticised as, though it regards itself as a subversive group outside the cultural establishment, some of its members have gone on to occupy more central positions on the Swedish literary field.
Swedish literature is the literature written in the Swedish language or by writers from Sweden.
Sigrid "Siri" Sofia Matilda Elisabet von Essen was a Swedish-speaking Finnish noblewoman and actress. Her acting career spanned about 15 years, during which time she appeared in a number of plays that the Swedish dramatist and writer August Strindberg wrote specifically for her.
Getting Married is a collection of short stories by the Swedish writer August Strindberg. The first volume was first published on 27 September 1884 and contained twelve stories depicting "twenty marriages of every variety," some of which present women in an egalitarian light. The volume also contained a long preface, in which, in addition to his support for women's rights, Strindberg offered criticisms of the campaign, as well as of Henrik Ibsen's 1879 play A Doll's House. Strindberg finished a second volume of stories, dealing in part with "all the less common forms of 'marriage'" such as "pederasty and lesbianism," in the summer of 1885. After a delay caused by the unwillingness of printers and distributors to handle such a controversial volume, it was published in October 1886. While the first two stories are as sympathetic to women as some of those in the first volume, many border on misogyny. Its preface blamed women for religious persecution, war, and all of history's other misfortunes. Both volumes were written at a time when Strindberg was still married to Siri von Essen, though the publication of the second volume had a disastrous effect on their marriage.
Swedish realism is the period in Swedish literature that encompassed the last two decades of the 19th century. It is generally considered to have ended in the 1910s but the exact year is a matter of debate.
The period of Modernistic Swedish literature started in the 1910s. Some regard 1910 itself as the beginning, when August Strindberg published several critical newspaper articles, contesting many conservative values. Several other years are also possible. What is undisputed is that with the advent of social democracy and large labor strikes, the winds of the 1910s blew in the direction of a working class reformation.
Adolf Georg Wiedersheim-Paul was a Swedish novelist and playwright. He lived most of his adult life in Berlin, Germany, where he was a friend of Swedish writer August Strindberg, Finnish composer Jean Sibelius, Norwegian painter Edvard Munch and Finnish artist Akseli Gallen-Kallela.
Olof Gustaf Hugo Lagercrantz was a Swedish writer, critic, literary scholar and publicist.
Harriet Sofie Bosse was a Swedish–Norwegian actress. A celebrity in her day, Bosse is now most commonly remembered as the third wife of the playwright August Strindberg. Bosse began her career in a minor company run by her forceful older sister Alma Fahlstrøm in Kristiania. Having secured an engagement at the Royal Dramatic Theatre, the main drama venue of Sweden's capital Stockholm, Bosse caught the attention of Strindberg with her intelligent acting and exotic "oriental" appearance.
Michael Leverson Meyer was an English translator, biographer, journalist and dramatist who specialised in Scandinavian literature.
Selma Ottilia Lovisa Lagerlöf was a Swedish writer. She published her first novel, Gösta Berling's Saga, at the age of 33. She was the first woman to win the Nobel Prize in Literature, which she was awarded in 1909. Additionally, she was the first woman to be granted a membership in the Swedish Academy in 1914.
Creditors is a naturalistic tragicomedy by the Swedish playwright August Strindberg. It was written in Swedish during August and September 1888 in Denmark. It was first published in Danish in February 1889 and appeared in Swedish in 1890. It premiered at the Dagmar Theatre in Copenhagen in March 1889. It is seen as one of Strindberg's most powerful plays. Strindberg himself, writing in 1892, described it as his "most mature work."
Torsten Edvard Billman was a Swedish artist who worked as a printmaker, illustrator, and buon fresco painter. He counts as one of the 20th century's premier wood-engravers.
Gentlemen is the fourth novel by Swedish author Klas Östergren, published in 1980.
