Karl Vennberg was a Swedish

Sweden

Sweden , officially the Kingdom of Sweden , is a Nordic country on the Scandinavian Peninsula in Northern Europe. Sweden borders with Norway and Finland and is connected to Denmark by a bridge-tunnel across the Öresund....

 poet

Poet

A poet is a person who writes poetry. A poet's work can be literal, meaning that his work is derived from a specific event, or metaphorical, meaning that his work can take on many meanings and forms. Poets have existed since antiquity, in nearly all languages, and have produced works that vary...

, writer

Writer

A writer is a person who produces literature, such as novels, short stories, plays, screenplays, poetry, or other literary art. Skilled writers are able to use language to portray ideas and images....

 and translator

Translation

Translation is the communication of the meaning of a source-language text by means of an equivalent target-language text. Whereas interpreting undoubtedly antedates writing, translation began only after the appearance of written literature; there exist partial translations of the Sumerian Epic of...

. Born in Blädinge, Alvesta Municipality

Alvesta Municipality

Alvesta Municipality is a municipality in Kronoberg County, southern Sweden. Its seat is in Alvesta.The present municipality was created in 1971, when the market town Alvesta was amalgamated with four surrounding rural municipalities. Amalgamations had also taken place in 1952 and 1963...

, Kronoberg County

Kronoberg County

Kronoberg County is a County or län in southern Sweden. It borders the counties of Skåne, Halland, Jönköping, Kalmar and Blekinge. Its capital is the city Växjö.- Province :For History, Geography and Culture see: Småland...

 as the son of a farmer, Vennberg studied at Lund University

Lund University

Lund University , located in the city of Lund in the province of Scania, Sweden, is one of northern Europe's most prestigious universities and one of Scandinavia's largest institutions for education and research, frequently ranked among the world's top 100 universities...

 and in Stockholm and worked as a teacher of Norwegian

Norwegian language

Norwegian is a North Germanic language spoken primarily in Norway, where it is the official language. Together with Swedish and Danish, Norwegian forms a continuum of more or less mutually intelligible local and regional variants .These Scandinavian languages together with the Faroese language...

 in a Stockholm folk high school

Folk high school

Folk high schools are institutions for adult education that generally do not grant academic degrees, though certain courses might exist leading to that goal...

. His first poem "Hymn och hunger" ("Hymn and Hunger") was published in 1937. During his career, he published 20 collections of poetry. His literary criticism

Literary criticism

Literary criticism is the study, evaluation, and interpretation of literature. Modern literary criticism is often informed by literary theory, which is the philosophical discussion of its methods and goals...

 had an important influence on the Swedish literary scene. He also translated literary works into Swedish, among others Franz Kafka

Franz Kafka

Franz Kafka was a culturally influential German-language author of short stories and novels. Contemporary critics and academics, including Vladimir Nabokov, regard Kafka as one of the best writers of the 20th century...

's The Trial

The Trial

The Trial is a novel by Franz Kafka, first published in 1925. One of Kafka's best-known works, it tells the story of a man arrested and prosecuted by a remote, inaccessible authority, with the nature of his crime revealed neither to him nor the reader.Like Kafka's other novels, The Trial was never...

.

Generally considered a leading Swedish Modernist poet

Modernist poetry

Modernist poetry refers to poetry written between 1890 and 1950 in the tradition of modernist literature in the English language, but the dates of the term depend upon a number of factors, including the nation of origin, the particular school in question, and the biases of the critic setting the...

, several dissertations has been written about Vennberg's works. His poems are analytical but also often make use of irony

Irony

Irony is a rhetorical device, literary technique, or situation in which there is a sharp incongruity or discordance that goes beyond the simple and evident intention of words or actions...

. Vennberg is often said to be influenced by T. S. Eliot

T. S. Eliot

Thomas Stearns "T. S." Eliot OM was a playwright, literary critic, and arguably the most important English-language poet of the 20th century. Although he was born an American he moved to the United Kingdom in 1914 and was naturalised as a British subject in 1927 at age 39.The poem that made his...

.

Political views

During the 1930s and 1940s, Vennberg expressed some level of support for fascism

Fascism

Fascism is a radical authoritarian nationalist political ideology. Fascists seek to rejuvenate their nation based on commitment to the national community as an organic entity, in which individuals are bound together in national identity by suprapersonal connections of ancestry, culture, and blood...

 and nazism

Nazism

Nazism, the common short form name of National Socialism was the ideology and practice of the Nazi Party and of Nazi Germany...

. For example, in a letter in 1936, he wrote: "I know that Hitler

Adolf Hitler

Adolf Hitler was an Austrian-born German politician and the leader of the National Socialist German Workers Party , commonly referred to as the Nazi Party). He was Chancellor of Germany from 1933 to 1945, and head of state from 1934 to 1945...

 and Mussolini

Benito Mussolini

Benito Amilcare Andrea Mussolini was an Italian politician who led the National Fascist Party and is credited with being one of the key figures in the creation of Fascism....

 have given the youth of their countries something to live for, an inexorable and inevitable demand, beyond all reflection and analysis. The equilibrium of life cannot be restored in any other way. Liberty

Liberty

Liberty is a moral and political principle, or Right, that identifies the condition in which human beings are able to govern themselves, to behave according to their own free will, and take responsibility for their actions...

 is a divine privilege, which among humans only leads to dreary decay". Following the outbreak of World War II

World War II

World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...

 in Europe

Europe

Europe is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally 'divided' from Asia to its east by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas, and the waterways connecting...

 in 1939, Vennberg argued that "whether Hitler's expansion of his realm was justified or unjustified, we may in confidence leave for history to decide". He also argued that other countries had raised "compact walls of derision and enmity towards German will of life".

During the early Cold War

Cold War

The Cold War was the continuing state from roughly 1946 to 1991 of political conflict, military tension, proxy wars, and economic competition between the Communist World—primarily the Soviet Union and its satellite states and allies—and the powers of the Western world, primarily the United States...

, Vennberg was an adherent of the so called "third stance" in Swedish public debate, which advocated a neutral stance in the conflict between the two superpowers. Despite this, he participated in a gathering at the USSR

Soviet Union

The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....

 embassy in Stockholm where he praised the "cultural upbuilding" in the USSR. In 1948 he participated in the founding of the Intellectuals' International Relations Committee for Peace, a USSR-controlled front organization

Front organization

A front organization is any entity set up by and controlled by another organization, such as intelligence agencies, organized crime groups, banned organizations, religious or political groups, advocacy groups, or corporations...

 which summoned the World Congress of Intellectuals for Peace

World Congress of Intellectuals for Peace

The World Congress of Intellectuals for Peace convened in Wrocław, Poland on August 25-28, 1948, in the aftermath of the Second World War. Notable politicians, academics, and artists attended, including Pablo Picasso, Frédéric Joliot-Curie, Irène Joliot-Curie, Bertolt Brecht, Paul Éluard, Aldous...

 of 1948 in Wrocław.

Awards and honors

Karl Vennberg won a number of literary prizes during his career:

• Samfundet De Nio
  Samfundet De Nio
  Samfundet De Nio is a Swedish literary society founded on 14 February 1913 in Stockholm by a testamentary donation from writer Lotten von Kraemer. The society has nine members who are elected for life. Its purpose is to promote Swedish literature, peace and women's issues. It mainly presents a...
  
  s pris, 1956
• The Bellman Prize, 1960
• Litteraturfrämjandets stora pris, 1963
• The Nordic Council's Literature Prize
  The Nordic Council's Literature Prize
  The Nordic Council Literature Prize is awarded for a work of literature written in one of the languages of the Nordic countries, that meets "high literary and artistic standards". Established in 1962, the prize is awarded every year, and is worth 350,000 Danish kroner...
  
  , 1972
• The Carl Emil Englund Prize, 1979
• The Kellgren Prize, 1979
• The Aniara Prize, 1988
• The Pilot Prize, 1993
• The Gerard Bonnier Prize, 1994

He was also awarded a honorary doctorate

Honorary degree

An honorary degree or a degree honoris causa is an academic degree for which a university has waived the usual requirements, such as matriculation, residence, study, and the passing of examinations...

 at Stockholm University

Stockholm University

Stockholm University is a state university in Stockholm, Sweden. It has over 28,000 students at four faculties, making it one of the largest universities in Scandinavia. The institution is also frequently regarded as one of the top 100 universities in the world...

.

Further reading

• Anders Johansson (2000) The negativity of poetry. A study of Karl Vennberg's literary criticism and poetry. Stockholm: Almqvist & Wiksell International. ISBN 91-22-01865-4 (Abstract)

External links

• Karl Vennberg - Albert Bonnier publishing house presentation page (in Swedish)