Verner von Heidenstam
Swedish poet and novelist (1859–1940)
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Key Takeaways
- Carl Gustaf Verner von Heidenstam (6 July 1859 – 20 May 1940) was a Swedish poet, novelist and laureate of the 1916 Nobel Prize in Literature.
- His poems and prose work are filled with a great joy of life, sometimes imbued with a love of Swedish history and scenery, particularly its physical aspects.
- Von Heidenstam was the son of Gustaf von Heidenstam, an engineer, and Magdalena Charlotta von Heidenstam (née Rütterskiöld).
- He studied painting in the Academy of Stockholm but soon left because of ill health.
- Literary career He was at once greeted as a poet of promise on the publication of his first collection of poems, Vallfart och vandringsår ( Pilgrimage: the Wander Years , 1888).
Carl Gustaf Verner von Heidenstam (6 July 1859 – 20 May 1940) was a Swedish poet, novelist and laureate of the 1916 Nobel Prize in Literature. He was a member of the Swedish Academy from 1912. His poems and prose work are filled with a great joy of life, sometimes imbued with a love of Swedish history and scenery, particularly its physical aspects.
Early life
Verner von Heidenstam was born in Olshammar, Örebro County, on 6 July 1859 to a noble family. Von Heidenstam was the son of Gustaf von Heidenstam, an engineer, and Magdalena Charlotta von Heidenstam (née Rütterskiöld). He was educated at Beskowska skolan in Stockholm.
He studied painting in the Academy of Stockholm but soon left because of ill health. He then traveled extensively in Europe, Africa and the Orient.
Literary career
He was at once greeted as a poet of promise on the publication of his first collection of poems, Vallfart och vandringsår (Pilgrimage: the Wander Years, 1888). It is a collection of poems inspired by his experiences in the orient and marks an abandonment of naturalism that was dominant then in Swedish literature.
His love for beauty is also shown by the long narrative poem Hans Alienus (1892). Dikter ("Poems", 1895) and Karolinerna (The Charles Men, 2 vols., 1897–1898), a series of historical portraits of King Charles XII of Sweden and his cavaliers, shows a strong nationalistic passion. English translations of short stories from Karolinerna can be found in the American-Scandinavian Review (New York), May 1914, November 1915, and July 1916. The two volumes of Folkunga Trädet (The Tree of the Folkungs, 1905–07) are the inspired, epic story of a clan of Swede chieftains in the Middle Ages.
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