Anna Maria Lenngren (née Malmstedt, 1754-1817) was an eminent poet in Sweden during the 18th century and she is still known as one of Stockholms Posten’s sharpest satirists. The early stage of her career as a translator, when she was recognised as “mamsell Malmstedt”, had a great impact on her following work, which has been largely neglected. This master’s thesis analyses her largest translations: Lucile (1776), Zemire och Azor (1778), Arsène (1779), and Dido til Eneas (1778), in comparison with their originals. Throughout the work with comparing the translations to their originals, it became clear that two expressions, often used to describe the female main characters in the texts, are frequently added and/or emphasized in mamsell Malmstedt’s translations: virtue (dygd) and folly (dårskap). Through these expressions, Malmstedt changes the stories and themes of the original texts, and through her use of virtue and folly in her translations, we get access to a background, to a world of ideas, that can give us a greater understanding of her own poems and of her thoughts about being a writing woman in Sweden during the 18th century. To develop a better understanding of this world of ideas, this thesis takes its starting-point in the history of virtue, and uses a feminist literary theory by Sandra Gilbert and Susan Gubar, which explains how and why women’s roles in literature, as either angels or monsters, have had a great impact on female writers throughout history. Gilbert and Gubar’s theories are of great interest for this thesis since the female main characters in Anna Maria Malmstedt’s translations, defined by either virtue or folly, could be seen as ancestors of the angelic and monstrous characters that Gilbert and Gubar are discussing.

<p>Anna Maria Lenngren (1754-1817) is known as one of <em>Stockholms Posten’s</em> sharpest satirists. Over the years many literature researchers have based their analysis and interpretations on biographical facts. This means that we miss important parts of her authorship, as she almost exceptionally has been writing role-poems. In a role-poem, the author takes a role as a fictitious narrative subject and/or another poem character. This means that the narrator's, or other subject’s opinion does not have to coincide with the real author’s. At the same time, it is important to be open to the possibility that a text in addition to a narrator, may be under the influence of an implied author. This becomes particularly clear in texts that seem to express an opinion that goes against the narrator's own. In this thesis I will show, that in order to understand Lenngren’s poems it is crucial to be aware of various narrative techniques.</p><p>I have tried to bring some of Lenngren’s poems into dialogue with each other, which is rewarding, since many themes, narrative subjects and characters are recurrent. This, combined with the awareness of diverse narrative techniques, makes it possible to see Lenngren’s works in a new light. I have mainly focused on the poems concerning young women, and those involving female writers. My analysis shows that the young girl’s reality seems to be in a cage – a cage that sometimes protects her from losing her innocence, and sometimes causes the opposite.  By drawing parallels between Lenngren's different poems, we can also imagine her way of thinking when it comes to women’s writing.  In some poems the narrative subject defends women's right to write, while other poems describe the reality that female writers in Lenngren's contemporaries had to face.</p>

Anna Maria Lenngren (1754-1817) is known as one of Stockholms Posten’s sharpest satirists. Over the years many literature researchers have based their analysis and interpretations on biographical facts. This means that we miss important parts of her authorship, as she almost exceptionally has been writing role-poems. In a role-poem, the author takes a role as a fictitious narrative subject and/or another poem character. This means that the narrator's, or other subject’s opinion does not have to coincide with the real author’s. At the same time, it is important to be open to the possibility that a text in addition to a narrator, may be under the influence of an implied author. This becomes particularly clear in texts that seem to express an opinion that goes against the narrator's own. In this thesis I will show, that in order to understand Lenngren’s poems it is crucial to be aware of various narrative techniques. I have tried to bring some of Lenngren’s poems into dialogue with each other, which is rewarding, since many themes, narrative subjects and characters are recurrent. This, combined with the awareness of diverse narrative techniques, makes it possible to see Lenngren’s works in a new light. I have mainly focused on the poems concerning young women, and those involving female writers. My analysis shows that the young girl’s reality seems to be in a cage – a cage that sometimes protects her from losing her innocence, and sometimes causes the opposite.  By drawing parallels between Lenngren's different poems, we can also imagine her way of thinking when it comes to women’s writing.  In some poems the narrative subject defends women's right to write, while other poems describe the reality that female writers in Lenngren's contemporaries had to face.