Carl Anton Wetterbergh
Carl Anton Wetterbergh (born June 6, 1804 in Jönköping , † January 31, 1889 in Linköping ) was a Swedish writer and doctor . He was also known by the pseudonym Uncle Adam .
Life
Wetterbergh's parents were the court judge Anders Johan Wetterbergh and Anna Kristina Wetterbergh, née Lyckman. His father was a free-thinking publicist who gave his son an unusual upbringing in freedom that led him to early independence. His younger brother Alexis Wetterbergh was an artist.
In 1822 Wetterbergh began studying medicine at Lund University , received his doctorate in medicine in 1834, and became a master of surgery in 1835 . In 1837 he was appointed regimental doctor in the Jämtland military police regiment and settled in Östersund . In 1846 he left Östersund and moved to Stockholm to work as an assistant doctor in a prison and work facility and took part in the literary life of Stockholm in the following years. After Wetterbergh was promoted to regimental doctor in the First Leibgrenadierregiment in 1848, he went to Östergötland , first to the area around Norrköping , and later to Linköping . In his capacity as a field doctor, he was assigned to the Swedish troops in Denmark. In 1874 he said goodbye to military service and spent the last 15 years of his life withdrawn from any medical or literary work.
Literary work
As early as 1832 Wetterbergh had tried his hand at being a novelist in the Stockholmsposten newspaper under the pseudonym C-gh . In 1840 he resumed his writing activity with unusual success. This and the next year he published his first humor-marked genre drawings in the newspaper Aftonbladet under the pseudonyms Uncle Adam , Alexis , Pfefferkorn or Mr. Bagatelli , of which the former proved to be permanent. In 1842 the genre drawings and The Four Signatures were published in book form, followed by a series of novels and short stories. At the same time he wrote the play Pröfningen ( The Examination ), which was premiered in 1842 in Nya Teatern . Wetterbergh showed keen interest in the political and social reform demands of the time. This was reflected in the larger novels he wrote towards the end of the 1840s: Penningar och arbete ( Money and Labor ) (1847), undoubtedly his most notable script of those years, Altartavlan ( The Altarpiece ) (1848) and Hat och kärlek ( Hate and Love ) (1849). In these works he calls for the conditions for prisoners to be improved, income to be distributed fairly and for greater religious tolerance. His work also included a number of short stories in Kalendern and Tännforsen (1848), a story about the life of the people of Jämtland. More novels and short stories appeared in the following decade. In these works he tries to arouse the readership and to arouse sympathy for the losers of society.
After 1860, Uncle Adam realized that his need to write novels and short stories had died down. After a volume of poetry, a collection of simple, wistful ways from 1861, he devoted himself to writing children's literature. The children's newspaper Linnea, tidning för barn was published from 1868 to 1872 .
His writing style is simple and unaffected, in line with his motto: “The larger works you can produce with simple means, the better. The highest task of art is not to appear artificial. ”His works testify to great life experience, a certain humorous streak and compassion for the common people.
Works (selection)
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Honourings and prices
- Royal Prize of the Swedish Academy , 1869
literature
- Lars G. Warme: A History of Swedish Literature . University of Nebraska Press, 1996, ISBN 978-0-8032-4750-5
- Carl Anton Wetterbergh . In: Theodor Westrin, Ruben Gustafsson Berg, Eugen Fahlstedt (eds.): Nordisk familjebok konversationslexikon och realencyklopedi . 2nd Edition. tape 32 : Werth – Väderkvarn . Nordisk familjeboks förlag, Stockholm 1921, Sp. 137-138 (Swedish, runeberg.org ).
Web links
- Literature by and about Carl Anton Wetterbergh in the catalog of the German National Library
- Uncle Adam . Project Runeberg (Swedish)
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b c d Carl Anton Wetterbergh . In: Theodor Westrin, Ruben Gustafsson Berg, Eugen Fahlstedt (eds.): Nordisk familjebok konversationslexikon och realencyklopedi . 2nd Edition. tape 32 : Werth – Väderkvarn . Nordisk familjeboks förlag, Stockholm 1921, Sp. 137-138 (Swedish, runeberg.org ).
- ^ A b Lars G. Warme: A History of Swedish Literature . P. 220
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Wetterbergh, Carl Anton |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | Uncle Adam; Wetterbergh, Karl Anton; Vetterbergh, Karl |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | Swedish writer and doctor |
| DATE OF BIRTH | June 6, 1804 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Jonkoping |
| DATE OF DEATH | January 31, 1889 |
| Place of death | Linkoping |