Bo Bergman
Bo Hjalmar Bergman ( born October 6, 1869 in Stockholm, † November 17, 1967 ) was a Swedish writer, theater and literary critic, and member of the Swedish Academy from 1925 until his death.
Life
Bergman studied in Uppsala, where he took his degree in 1889 from. He spent his entire working life until his retirement in 1933 as a post office clerk in Stockholm. Even while he was working for the Swedish postal service, he began to write poems. His first anthology of poems was published in 1903 Marionettema. Besides his work at the post office Bergman worked from 1900 to 1904 as a literary critic for the Swedish cultural magazine Ord och image. He also worked for the daily newspaper Dagens Nyheter and was also a theater critic from 1905 to 1939. Bergman is buried in the Norra begravningsplatsen in Solna, Sweden.
Work
Bergman was a close friend of the Swedish novelist Hjalmar Söderberg with whom he maintained a strong correspondence from 1891 until Söderberg's death in 1941. How Söderbergs also Bergman's works were strongly influenced by the decadent, especially Charles Baudelaire's flâneur. Bergman's early poems are typically decadent and disillusioned. They include a deterministic point of view to a changing world in which all value systems and scientific and metaphysical processes that contribute to the understanding of the universe, are meaningless. Bergman's poems give naturlyrische moods, combined with a love motif as a central rally generic reflections again. Marionettema ( The Puppets ) assumed that the fate of humanity lies in the hands of a bearded old man who controls her every move.
How Söderbergs also made Bergman's view of the world the way for a militant humanism free. This is particularly evident in his later works, in response to the growing threat of Nazism. This time criticism is, inter alia, visible in the collection of poems, The kingdom. In the years after 1950, he continued his literary activity continued with a unique vitality. The central motif is treated with the same mastery of form and melody, as in previous years.
Bergman also wrote short stories and novels, as well as an autobiography and a drama. His works have inspired some great Swedish composers such as Wilhelm Stenhammar, Ture Rangström and Karin Rehnqvist.