ATTERBOM, PER DANIEL AMADEUS

(1790-1855)

   A Swedish poet and playwright, Atterbom was a major spokesperson for romanticism in Sweden. He was strongly influenced by the German romantics, and particularly Friedrich W. J. Schelling's System of Transcendental Idealism (1800) and Johann Gottlieb Fichte's Science ofKnowledge (1794). As a student at Uppsala University, Atterbom was deeply involved in the debate between classicism and romanticism, even to the point of exhaustion. He was a central figure in the group Auroraforbundet (The Aurora Society), which sponsored the important journal Phosphorus.

   Atterbom's first major publication was a cycle of poems, Blommorna (The Flowers), which was published in the annual Poetisk kalender (Poetic Calendar) in 1812. Poetisk kalender was very popular as a Christmas gift, and Blommorna reached a large audience. The poems in the cycle symbolized both the seasons of the year and different aspects of human life.

   One of the major romantic genres was the fairy-tale play (sagos-pel or eventyrspill), and Atterbom tried his hand at it with his Fågel bla, a fragment of which was published in Poetisk kalender in 1818, but which remained incomplete. He did, however, complete his second effort in this genre, Lycksalighetens o (1824-1827; The Isle of Bliss), in which the main character, King Astolf, spends 300 years in the company of the forever young Felicia. This poetic drama is Atterbom's major work as well as one of the great works of Swedish romanticism.