Erik Gustaf Geijer
Erik Gustaf Geijer (born January 12, 1783 at Ransäter farm, Munkfors municipality ; † April 23, 1847 in Stockholm ) is one of the most important Swedish writers of the Romantic period , but was also active as a composer .
Life
Erik Gustaf Geijer was born the son of a factory owner in Värmland . After a happy youth, he came to Uppsala in 1799 to study. His studies dragged on because he wasn't sure what he wanted to do. From 1809 to 1810 he was a tutor in England . After his return he published the work Om inbillningskraftens verkan på uppfostran (On the influence of the imagination on education), in which he turned away from the rational ideal of the Enlightenment and turned to the fantasy of romanticism . He started working as a private tutor in Stockholm .
In Stockholm he frequented friends from his student days, most of them from Värmland. They formed a circle where - at first for fun - they gave each other Viking names and drank from horns. But it soon developed into a renaissance of early modern Gothicism and the Gothic Bund ( Götiska Förbundet ), a literary club with its own magazine that was interested in Nordic history. In the first issue of Iduna magazine , which appeared in 1811, some of Geijer's best known poems were published, Vikingen (the Viking) and Odalbonden (the yeoman ). Other poems were published in the following numbers, and in poetic calendar of 1815. From 1814-1816 appeared a by him together with Arvid August Afzelius assembled collection Svenska folkvisor från forntiden (Swedish folk songs from the past, partly translated by Gottlieb Mohnike titled folk songs Sweden: from the collection of Geijer and Afzelius, Berlin 1830).
In 1817 Erik Gustaf Geijer received a professorship in history at Uppsala University . As a poet he fell silent, the more intensely he devoted himself to history. The history studies, a trip through Germany in 1825 and the contact with liberal writers led Geijer to rethink his reactionary-conservative point of view in politics and history. In literary terms, too, he gradually moved away from Romanticism and tended towards a more realism-oriented literature, as his memoir Minnen (memories) from 1834 show. In 1838 he officially renounced conservatism and made the transition to liberalism in the first issue of the magazine Litteratur-Bladet .
His later lyrical production consisted of a number of simple short poems to music that he composed himself. He contributed some hymns to Johan Olof Wallin's hymnbook from 1819. Geijer also composed instrumental pieces such as piano sonatas, string quartets and wrote choral songs.
Geijer's importance to the Swedish language is also due to the fact that he is one of the greatest creators of the winged words and idioms that still appear in everyday language today. Today's Swedish greeting Hej probably comes from the Götischen Bund.
Awards
Geijer was accepted into the Svenska Academies in 1826 (Chair 14), in 1829 in the Royal Swedish Academy of Music and in 1835 in the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences . 1828-1830 and 1849/41 he was a representative of the university on the Swedish State Council.
literature
- Erik Gustaf Geijer . In: Herman Hofberg, Frithiof Heurlin, Viktor Millqvist, Olof Rubenson (eds.): Svenskt biografiskt handlexikon . 2nd Edition. tape 1 : A-K . Albert Bonniers Verlag, Stockholm 1906, p. 383 (Swedish, runeberg.org ).
Web links
- Digitized works by Geijer - SICD of the Universities of Strasbourg
Individual evidence
- ^ Ralf Tuchtenhagen: Little history of Sweden . CH Beck, Munich 2008, p. 105 f.
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Geijer, Erik Gustaf |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | Swedish romantic writer |
| DATE OF BIRTH | January 12, 1783 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Ransäter farm, Munkfors (municipality) |
| DATE OF DEATH | April 23, 1847 |
| Place of death | Stockholm |