This study examines how smells were perceived in 18th century Stockholm by analyzing odor references in the poetry collection Fredman’s Epistles (1790) (Sw. Fredmans epistlar) by Carl Michael Bellman (1740–1795). Using a specific form of contextualizing, the purpose of the study is to show how the meaning of smells in 18th century Stockholm appears when the smelling objects in the epistles are put in a relevant context. By extension, the investigation will show how the smell sensations in the epistles reveal attitudes towards life, death and certain social and cultural phenomena. I argue that the inhabitants of Stockholm in the 18th century, depending on their social and cultural belonging, shared many of the attitudes towards places, people and phenomena that are reproduced in the epistles. I also argue that 18th century Stockholm was not as dominated by foul smells as has been claimed by previous research. This study sheds new light on how different smells were perceived, described and understood in 18th century Stockholm.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:UPSALLA1/oai:DiVA.org:su-190741 |
| Date | January 2020 |
| Creators | Svenningsson, Susann |
| Publisher | Stockholms universitet, Institutionen för kultur och estetik |
| Source Sets | DiVA Archive at Upsalla University |
| Language | Swedish |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Student thesis, info:eu-repo/semantics/bachelorThesis, text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Rights | info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess |
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