Gustaf Fröding

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Fröding in 1896.
Fröding in 1896.

Gustaf Fröding (help·info) /ˈgɵsˌtav ˈfrøːˌdɪŋ/ (August 22, 1860 - February 8, 1911) was a Swedish poet and writer, born in Alster outside Karlstad in Värmland. The family moved to Kristinehamn in year 1867. He later studied at Uppsala University, and is known for having written openly about his personal problems with alcohol and women.

His poetry combines formal virtuosity with a sympathy for the ordinary, the neglected and the down-trodden. It is highly musical and lends itself to musical setting; as songs it has developed in to the much wider world of popular music and frequently been re-recorded by Swedish singers like Olle Adolphson and Monica Zetterlund.

He is generally held to be one of the greatest poets of verse that Sweden has ever produced, on par with Carl Michael Bellman.

Jag köpte min kärlek för pengar,
för mig var ej annan att få,
sjung vackert, I skorrande strängar,
sjung vackert om kärlek ändå.

Den drömmen, som aldrig besannats,
som dröm var den vacker att få,
för den, som ur Eden förbannats,
är Eden ett Eden ändå.
—from Gralstänk
I bought my love for money,
for me there was no else to get,
sing lovely, ye trembling strings,
sing lovely of love anyway.

The dream, that was never fulfilled,
as a dream it was beautiful yet,
to him, who was banished from Eden,
Eden an Eden remains.
—translation from [1]

Contents

[edit] External links

[edit] Selected works

Translated titles in italics.

  • Guitarr och dragharmonika (1891) - "Guitar and Concertina"
  • Nya dikter (1894) - "New Poems"
  • Räggler å paschaser (1895)
  • Stänk och flikar (1896) - "Splashes and spray"
  • Nytt och gammalt (1897) - "New and Old Pieces"
  • Gralstänk (1898) - "Splashes of Grail"
  • Efterskörd (1910) - "Aftermath"
  • Reconvalescentia (1913)
  • Samlade skrifter 1-16 (1917-1922) - "Assembled Writings 1-16"
  • Brev till en ung flicka (1952) - "Letters to a young girl"
  • Äventyr i Norge (1963) - "Adventures in Norway"
  • Brev 1-II (1981-1982) - "Letter 1-II"

[edit] His works in English

  • Poems (1903) - (trans. by Albert Björck)
  • Selected Poems (1916) - (trans. by Charles Wharton Stork)
  • Guitar & Concertina (1925) - (trans. by C.D. Locock, 100 poems)
  • Gustaf Fröding: His Life and Poetry (1986) - (written by Paul Britten Austin)
  • The Selected Poems of Gustav Fröding (1993) - (trans. by Henrik Aspán, in collaboration with Martin Allwood)
  • The Complete Poems of Gustaf Fröding (1997-1999) - (trans. by Mike McArthur, several volumes)
  • The North! To the North! (2001) - (trans. by Judith Moffett, five poets including Fröding)

[edit] Atlantis

Hark to the city-life roaring!
Dull is the boom of the rolling fray:
Sometimes a cry goes soaring
Shrill from the torrent spray.
Here all is quiet,
Quiet the water
Sleeps in the silent bay.

Here is all desolate seeming —
Far are we now from reality's strand:
Only the City of Dreaming
Woven on water and land.
Let your head rest now
Here on my shoulder —
Look o'er the taffrail's rand.

These are no rock-reefs that glimmer
Under our keel in the misty light:
Seest thou not castles that shimmer,
Seest thou the palaces bright?
That is Atlantis,
Dreamland's Atlantis,
The world that was sunk in night!

Look on the white walls shining
There where the ways by the citadel meet
Godlike statues are lining
Garden and market and street.
All is deserted,
Memories only
Wander with joyless feet.

Gold gat the power for oppression:
Lordlings of Mammon the empire seized,
Stole all the millions' possession,
Squandered in riot and feast.
Luxury's conquests
Won they, and Ruin
Grew as the tale increased.

Then, as the high Gods fated,
Vanished and sank in the gulfing waves
A people to death dedicated —
Sank to their ocean graves:
Splendidly gifted,
Sunken and perished,
Whelmed in the sunless caves.

Thick-set corals are gleaming,
Paving the city of dreams and of sleep:
Sunrays like starlight seeming
Fall on the soundless deep:
Weeds of old ocean,
Twining their fibres,
Over the columns creep.

Some day, ah some day for us too
Dawneth our hour for the quenching of light
Some day descends upon us too
Sleep and eternal night —
Waves rolling o'er us,
Sunlight that filters
Dim through the waters bright.

Over our city out yonder,
Reared on foundations of slime and sand,
Some day the sea-waves shall wander,
Flooding our shore and strand:
Over us swirling,
Over us swinging,
Folk from an alien land.

Gustaf Fröding New Poems
English lyrics by C.D. Locock 1925
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