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Cette étude traite de la représentation du criminel et de la normalisation de l’homme dans les œuvres d’August Strindberg, Ola Hansson et Gustaf af Geijerstam. La question de l’identité et de la spécificité de l’homme criminel attira une attention considérable à la fin du 19ème siècle. Elle fut explorée dans des sciences prestigieuses qui employaient de nouvelles techniques photographiques et statistiques pour surveiller et définir les anormaux. Dans les œuvres littéraires examinées, le criminel représente un thème privilégié : à travers ce thème, des questions fondamentales concernant la déviance, le déclin et la dégénérescence pourraient être exprimées et discutées par les auteurs. Pourtant, le criminel reste une figure complexe qui à la fois était perçue comme un homme malade ou déviant qu’il faut normaliser et un homme supérieur qui exprime sa propre liberté et individualité. Ce processus ambiguë est décrit, avec un terme emprunté à Michel Foucault, comme une forme de « gouvernementalité », ou une élaboration continue d’un champ de liberté et individualité situées. / This study explores the representation of the criminal and the wider question of the normalization of man seen through the works of August Strindberg, Ola Hansson and Gustaf af Geijerstam. The question of the identity of the criminal attracted considerable attention at the end of the 19th century. It was explored in new, prestigious scientific fields that relied upon cutting-edge photographic technology and statistics as forms of surveillance for defining types of human beings. In the literary works, the criminal thus functions as an appealing topic through which deeper cultural anxieties about deviance, decline and degeneration could be voiced and discussed. However, the criminal is a complex figure who at the same time tended to be seen as a sick, deviant or abnormal individual in need of normalization, and as a superior being who expresses his personal freedom and individuality. This ambivalent process, called a “game of normality”, is in turn understood in post-Foucauldian terms as a form of “governmentality”, or as a continuous shaping of a field of situated freedom and individuality

Denna uppsats visar hur representationen av dekadent maskulinitet i svensk dekadenslitteratur från tiden strax innan sekelskiftet 1900 konstruerades. Genom att se till de tre författarna Ola Hansson (1860-1925), Emil Kléen (1868-1898) och Axel Wallengren (1865-1896) visas hur den dekadente mannen – dekadenten – skapas som karaktär och litterär figur. Dekadenten var, menar denna undersökning, extremt bunden av rum, socialitet och kropp, och kunde endast agera inom mycket snäva ramar skapade av dessa kulturella kategorier. Vad som framträder är närmast en schablon enligt vilken dekadensförfattarna arbetade, och rum, umgängesformer och kroppsligheter är så gott som utbytbara från verk till verk och författarskap till författarskap. I likhet med tidigare forskning på ämnet styrker denna uppsats bilden av den dekadenta maskuliniteten som en nervös och förment feminiserad maskulinitet, men vill till detta även tillföra att den, i egenskap av en motmaskulinitet i opposition mot den normativt borgerliga maskuliniteten, även var kapabel att erbjuda fysiskt motstånd.

Bengt Lidforss (1868–1913) was professor of botany between 1910 and 1913. But after the turn of the century he also emerged as a charismatic leader within the Swedish working-class movement. He became one of its foremost publicists. In the social democratic newspaper Arbetet in Malmö he wrote about natural sciences but also about political, philosophical and literary issues. As a literary critic Lidforss was the keenest protector of the Scanian literary school, and his struggle for Ola Hansson and Vilhelm Ekelund has made its mark in Swedish literary history, as have his contributions in favour of Gustaf Fröding and August Strindberg, culminating in the polemic articles during the Strindberg Feud (1910–11). Skönhetsdyrkare och socialdemokrat. Studier i Bengt Lidforss litteraturkritiska gärning (Worshipper of Beauty And Social Democrat. Studies in Bengt Lidforss’ Achievement As A Literary Critic) emphasises the paradoxic combination of Lidforss’ fundamentally socialist views and a strong belief in art. To him art was not isolated from society but quite the contrary; a significant factor in the changing of society. The new socialistic human being should be ennobled by arts instead of emasculated by religion. With the help of Pierre Bourdieu’s concept of “field”, it is shown how Lidforss, by attacking leading middle-class newspapers and publicists, created for himself and Arbetet a constantly stronger position within the field of journalism. Within the field of literary criticism he attacked the middle-class critics, and thus participated in associating Strindberg and Fröding as well as the young Scanian writers with the working-class movement. Lidforss’ literary taste was seen as an alternative to middle-class taste and the worshipping of beauty thereby became fashionable among socialists. The fact that one finds sympathies not only for symbolism but also for decadent descriptions with Lidforss the socialist, has to do with the fact that the descriptions of the discomfort of the heroes revealed the disadvantages of the capitalist society. Nevertheless Lidforss’ issued warnings against programmatic pessimism, since he was of the opinion that literature should strengthen people in their struggle. When it came to the plight of the human being under capitalism he was a pessimist, but he believed the stronger in a future socialist society. The terms for the artists would be more tolerable in such a society, he prophesied. He admitted that revolutionary poetry could be useful but was of the opinion that the quality of art would lessen if it consciously served politics. The revolutionary poetry he praised in his reviews was poetry he found genuine and coming from the heart. He did not favour pronounced tendencies, but he liked to use poetry in a political context. / Bengt Lidforss (1868–1913) var botaniker, men också publicist och socialist. Skandalomsusad och färgstark har han porträtterats av ett stort antal skönlitterära författare, allt ifrån August Strindberg till Inger Alfvén. Hans mångsidiga medarbetarskap i Arbetet hjälpte tidningen fram till en uppmärksammad position. I denna bok skildras hans kamp för en ledande position också inom det litterära fältet. Lidforss var en skönhetsdyrkare av stora mått men samtidigt socialdemokrat. Detta ledde till att han stred på många kulturella arenor – inte bara mot kritiker, författare, och Svenska Akademien, utan också mot inflytelserika män inom kyrka och politik. Skönhetsdyrkare och socialdemokrat ger oss oväntade svar på vad dessa bataljer handlade om och vi får möta Lidforss samtida giganter som Fredrik Böök, Vilhelm Ekelund, Albert Engström, Verner von Heidenstam, Oscar Levertin, August Strindberg med flera.

<p>The dissertation describes a crucial step in the development of a modern writer's identity in Sweden. It applies the French sociologist Pierre Bourdieu’s theories of the autonomous ”literary field” to the development in eighteen-eighties, one of the most important periods in Swedish literary history.</p><p>During this decade a large group of authors appeared, with August Strindberg in the front. In accordance with the dominating esthetical view of the nineteenth century, ”ideal realism”, the writers had an ethical responsibility. But they differed from their predecessors by not being loyal to the bourgeois society and its values, as codified in the concept of ”decency”, that contained, among other things, rules for what could be said in public. On the contrary, the new generation of authors attacked the bourgeoisie in novels, dramas and articles, especially in the singularly most controversial area, the regulation of sexuality and the ideals of bourgeois women.</p><p>This study argues that the new authors in their radical criticism aimed at the position of power in society traditionally upheld by the State church, which supervised education and ethical values. They did this by creating a role for themselves as young and oppressed, something that made it possible to deny any responsibility for the present state and furthermore to speak up, despite their own bourgeois background, for other oppressed groups like the working classes, the poor and women. But this also meant that they could not be successful in their ambitions to gain influence without loosing their identity. This was especially the consequence of the fact that an autonomous ”literary field” did not yet exist. That is, there were no internal literary institutions that, seemingly independent of the rest of society, decided what was ”good literature.” Instead, the singularly most important judge of interesting literature was the bourgeois public. Strindberg seems to have realised this early, and achieved an identity as ”uncontrolled”. He thereby lost his intellectual credibility, but gained a much bigger freedom to write and also got the attention of the large audience. At the same time, his writing undermined the values of decency by breaking the bourgeois society’s fundamental wall between the private and the public sphere, not least by writing what was regarded as facts about his own private life. </p><p>The conservative reaction accelerated towards the end of the decade while the authors grew more and more bitter about the public’s lack of understanding. At this point the author Verner von Heidenstam took the opportunity to declare a new literary era, dissociating his aesthetics from the one of the Eighties and proclaiming the necessity of an aristocratic, ethically indifferent literature (with himself as its leader). </p><p>Confronted with the new concept of what ought to be regarded as “modern”, the established male authors were generally quick to separate themselves from the female authors, and to identify the attacked literature solely with the one that critically discussed the situation of women in society - a description that has been largely adopted in the history of literature. A number of male authors also wrote novels separating themselves from the Eighties. Thus, they could continue into the new period, while female authors in general were silenced or forced to write in less esteemed genres (”popular literature”, children’s books). </p><p>Ultimately the result was a more distinct male domination coupled with a growing contempt for the large audience. This, in turn, created a need for internal institutions that could interpret, value and support literature - scholarships, elitist critics, and a writers’ union. These institutions subsequently were founded or developed during the nineties – all of them steps towards autonomy.</p>

The dissertation describes a crucial step in the development of a modern writer's identity in Sweden. It applies the French sociologist Pierre Bourdieu’s theories of the autonomous ”literary field” to the development in eighteen-eighties, one of the most important periods in Swedish literary history. During this decade a large group of authors appeared, with August Strindberg in the front. In accordance with the dominating esthetical view of the nineteenth century, ”ideal realism”, the writers had an ethical responsibility. But they differed from their predecessors by not being loyal to the bourgeois society and its values, as codified in the concept of ”decency”, that contained, among other things, rules for what could be said in public. On the contrary, the new generation of authors attacked the bourgeoisie in novels, dramas and articles, especially in the singularly most controversial area, the regulation of sexuality and the ideals of bourgeois women. This study argues that the new authors in their radical criticism aimed at the position of power in society traditionally upheld by the State church, which supervised education and ethical values. They did this by creating a role for themselves as young and oppressed, something that made it possible to deny any responsibility for the present state and furthermore to speak up, despite their own bourgeois background, for other oppressed groups like the working classes, the poor and women. But this also meant that they could not be successful in their ambitions to gain influence without loosing their identity. This was especially the consequence of the fact that an autonomous ”literary field” did not yet exist. That is, there were no internal literary institutions that, seemingly independent of the rest of society, decided what was ”good literature.” Instead, the singularly most important judge of interesting literature was the bourgeois public. Strindberg seems to have realised this early, and achieved an identity as ”uncontrolled”. He thereby lost his intellectual credibility, but gained a much bigger freedom to write and also got the attention of the large audience. At the same time, his writing undermined the values of decency by breaking the bourgeois society’s fundamental wall between the private and the public sphere, not least by writing what was regarded as facts about his own private life. The conservative reaction accelerated towards the end of the decade while the authors grew more and more bitter about the public’s lack of understanding. At this point the author Verner von Heidenstam took the opportunity to declare a new literary era, dissociating his aesthetics from the one of the Eighties and proclaiming the necessity of an aristocratic, ethically indifferent literature (with himself as its leader). Confronted with the new concept of what ought to be regarded as “modern”, the established male authors were generally quick to separate themselves from the female authors, and to identify the attacked literature solely with the one that critically discussed the situation of women in society - a description that has been largely adopted in the history of literature. A number of male authors also wrote novels separating themselves from the Eighties. Thus, they could continue into the new period, while female authors in general were silenced or forced to write in less esteemed genres (”popular literature”, children’s books). Ultimately the result was a more distinct male domination coupled with a growing contempt for the large audience. This, in turn, created a need for internal institutions that could interpret, value and support literature - scholarships, elitist critics, and a writers’ union. These institutions subsequently were founded or developed during the nineties – all of them steps towards autonomy.