Editing Gustaf Fröding

{{Expand Swedish|topic=bio|date=May 2023}}
{{Short description|Swedish poet and writer (1860–1911)}}
{{Infobox writer
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| name             = Gustaf Fröding
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| image            = Gustav Fröding.jpg
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| caption          = Fröding in 1896
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| birth_date       = {{birth date|df=y|1860|8|22}}
| birth_place      = [[Alster, Sweden|Alster]], Sweden
| death_date       = {{Death date and age|df=y|1911|2|8|1860|8|22}} 
| death_place      = [[Stockholm]], Sweden
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'''Gustaf Fröding''' ({{IPA|sv|ˈɡɵ̂sːtav ˈfrø̂ːdɪŋ|-|sv-gustav-froeding.ogg}}; 22 August 1860 – 8 February 1911) was a [[Swedes|Swedish]] poet and writer from [[Alster, Sweden|Alster]], [[Värmland]]. The family moved to [[Kristinehamn]] in the year 1867. He later studied at [[Uppsala University]] and worked as a journalist in Karlstad.<ref name="Stork">[https://archive.org/details/jstor-25109021 ''Gustaf Fröding, Swedish Lyric Poet''] by [[Charles Wharton Stork]], (Cedar Falls, IA: The North American Review, 1916). Vol. 204, No. 733 (December), pp. 897-908.</ref>

==Poetry==
His poetry combines formal virtuosity with a sympathy for the ordinary, the neglected and the down-trodden, sometimes written in [[Swedish dialects|his own regional dialect]]. It is highly musical and lends itself to musical setting; many of his poems have been set to music and recorded by Swedish singers such as [[Olle Adolphson]], [[Monica Zetterlund]], the Värmland group [[Sven-Ingvars]] and the Swedish band [[Mando Diao]]. 

Fröding wrote openly about his personal problems with alcohol and women and had to face a trial for obscenity.

{{Verse translation|lang=sv|
Jag köpte min kärlek för pengar,
för mig var ej annan att få,
sjung vackert, I skorrande strängar,
sjung vackert om kärlek ändå.

Den drömmen, som aldrig besannats,
som dröm var den vacker att få,
för den, som ur Eden förbannats,
är Eden ett Eden ändå.
|attr1=from ''Gralstänk''|
I purchased my love (how dearly!)
For money — what else could I get?
O jangling strings, sound clearly
The theme of my love-song yet!

For the dream, though the truth were vanished,
Was the princeliest dream I could get,
And for him who from Eden is banished
Is Eden an Eden yet.|attr2=Translation by [[C. D. Locock]]}}

== Sickness ==
[[File:Fröding and Heidenstam dressed in togas 1896.jpg|thumb|Gustaf Fröding and [[Verner von Heidenstam]] dressed in togas, the day after Heidenstam's marriage at [[Blå Jungfrun]]]]

The latter part of his life he spent in different [[psychiatric hospital|mental institutions]] and hospitals to cure his [[mental illness]] and [[alcoholism]], and eventually [[diabetes]]. During the first half of the 1890s he spent a couple of years at the Suttestad institution in [[Lillehammer]], [[Norway]], where he finished his work on his third book of poetry ''Stänk och flikar'', which was published in 1896. He wrote much of the material at a mental institution in [[Görlitz|Görlitz, Germany]]. In 1896 he moved back to Sweden. But as the year neared Christmas, his sister Cecilia made the difficult decision to make him stay at a hospital in [[Uppsala]]. Under the care of professor [[Frey Svenson]] Fröding got away from liquor and women, except one, Ida Bäckman. Fröding never married Ida, but grew fond of a nurse named Signe Trotzig. When he left hospital in Uppsala she stayed with him to the day he died.

A play by Swedish playwright Gottfrid Grafström, called ''Sjung vackert om kärlek'', about Fröding's time at the mental institution in Uppsala was first performed at the [[Royal Dramatic Theatre]] in 1973<ref name="dramaten">{{cite web | url=https://www.dramaten.se/medverkande/rollboken/Play/1057 | title=Sjung vackert om kärlek | publisher=[[Royal Dramatic Theatre]] | access-date=20 October 2019}}</ref> and has had periodic revivals since.

== Selected works ==
*''Gitarr och dragharmonika'' (Guitar and concertina) 1891 
*''Nya dikter'' (New poems) 1893
*''Räggler å paschaser'' (Tall tales and adventures) 1895 
*''Stänk och flikar'' (Splashes and spray) 1896 
*''Nytt och gammalt'' (New and old) 1897 
*''Gralstänk'' (Splashes of the grail) 1898 
*''Efterskörd'' (Gleanings) 1910
*''Reconvalescentia'' (Convalescence) 1914
*''Samlade skrifter 1-16'' (Collected works 1-16) 1917–1922
*''Brev till en ung flicka'' (Letters to a young girl) 1952  
*''Äventyr i Norge'' (Adventures in Norway) 1963
*''Gustaf Frödings brev, 2 vol.'' (Gustaf Fröding's letters, 2 vol.) 1981-1982
*"23 Bojaere"*

== His works in English ==
*''Poems'' 1903 <ref>''Poems'' by Gustaf Fröding, trans. by Albert Björck, (Stockholm: Björck och Börjesson, 1903).</ref> 
*''Selected Poems'' 1916 <ref>''Selected Poems'' by Gustaf Fröding, trans. by Charles Wharton Stork, (New York: The Macmillan Company, 1916).</ref> 
*''Guitar and Concertina'' 1925 <ref>''Guitar and Concertina'' by Gustaf Fröding, trans. by [[C. D. Locock]], (London: G. Allen and Unwin, 1925).</ref> 
*''Gustaf Fröding: His Life and Poetry'' 1986 <ref>''Gustaf Fröding: His Life and Poetry'' by [[Paul Britten Austin]], (Karlstad: Föreningen Alsters Herrgård, 1986).</ref> 
*''Swedes On Love'' CD 1991 <ref>''Swedes On Love'' CD, trans. by Roger Hinchliffe, (Stockholm: Roger Records, 1991).</ref> 
*''The Selected Poems of Gustaf Fröding'' 1993 <ref>''The Selected Poems of Gustaf Fröding'', trans. by Henrik Aspán in collaboration with Martin S. Allwood, (Mullsjö: Persona Press, 1993).</ref> 
*''The Complete Poems of Gustaf Fröding'' 1997-1999 <ref>''The Complete Poems of Gustaf Fröding'', trans. by Mike McArthur, several volumes, (Wintringham: Oak Tree Press, 1997-1999).</ref> 
*''The North! To the North!'' 2001 <ref>''The North! To the North!'', trans. by [[Judith Moffett]], five poets including 
Fröding, (Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 2001).</ref>

==References==
{{Reflist}}

== External links ==

{{commons category|Gustaf Fröding}}
* {{Gutenberg author | id=28374| name=Gustaf Fröding}} (in Finnish)
* {{Internet Archive author |sname=Gustaf Fröding |sopt=w}} 
* {{Librivox author |id=456}}

'''Swedish'''
[[File:Nittiotalisterna.jpg|thumb|225px| Influential Swedish critics and authors of the 1890s. Fröding: third from left in back row]]

*[https://openlibrary.org/authors/OL134942A/Gustaf_Fr%C3%B6ding Gustaf Fröding] at [[Open Library]].
*[https://runeberg.org/authors/froding.html Gustaf Fröding] at [[Project Runeberg]].
*[http://sv.wikisource.org/wiki/F%C3%B6rfattare:Gustaf_Fr%C3%B6ding Gustaf Fröding] at [[Wikisource|Swedish Wikisource]].
*[https://archive.org/search.php?query=Samlade%20skrifter.%20Minnesupplaga ''Samlade Skrifter''] at the [[Internet Archive]].

'''English'''
*[http://www.poemhunter.com/gustaf-froding/biography/ Gustaf Fröding at PoemHunter]
*[https://archive.org/download/KarlstadNewspaper/04ThreeFrdingPoems.pdf Three poems by Gustaf Fröding]
*[https://archive.org/download/KarlstadNewspaper/05TheUncrownedKing.pdf The uncrowned king of Swedish poetry]
*[http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/220590/Gustaf-Froding Gustaf Fröding] at the [[Encyclopædia Britannica]]
* {{Books and Writers |id=froding |name=Gustaf Fröding}} 
'''Translations'''
*[https://archive.org/details/selectedpoems00frodiala ''Selected Poems'' by Gustaf Fröding] at the [[Internet Archive]].
*[http://johnirons.blogspot.com/2011/11/early-poem-by-swedish-writer-gustaf.html ''Guitar and accordion'' (Gitarr och dragharmonika)]
*[http://johnirons.blogspot.com/2012/02/love-song-by-swedish-poet-gustaf.html ''A love song'' (En kärleksvisa)]
*[http://pokristensson.com/swpoems.html ''A love song'' and ''A ghazal'' (En ghasel)]
*[http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/the-old-mountain-troll/ ''The old mountain troll'' (Ett gammalt bergtroll)]
'''Streaming audio'''
*[https://archive.org/search.php?query=subject%3A%22Gustaf+Fr%C3%B6ding%22 Fröding verse and prose]
*[https://archive.org/details/KarlstadNewspaper ''Räggler å paschaser'']      
'''Videos'''
*{{YouTube|AKgmP01Qpl0|''Elin i hagen'' (Elin of Hagen)}}
*{{YouTube|aufVhDn4gys|''En februarivisa'' (A February song)}}
*{{YouTube|Wdxo1P73K1c|''Ett gammalt bergtroll''}}
*{{YouTube|-Vt7sCI2o_8|''Ett liv efter detta'' (A life after this)}}
*{{YouTube|id=fgoE2Q5S7Qwt=3m24s|title=''Dancing in the crossroads'' (Det var dans bort i vägen)}} Song begins at 3:24 of medley.

{{Authority control}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Froding, Gustaf}}
[[Category:1860 births]]
[[Category:1911 deaths]]
[[Category:People from Karlstad Municipality]]
[[Category:Writers from Värmland County]]
[[Category:Swedish-language poets]]
[[Category:Uppsala University alumni]]
[[Category:Burials at Uppsala old cemetery]]
[[Category:Swedish male poets]]
[[Category:19th-century Swedish poets]]
[[Category:19th-century Swedish male writers]]
[[Category:20th-century Swedish poets]]
[[Category:20th-century Swedish male writers]]