Viktor Rydberg
Encyclopedia
Abraham Viktor Rydberg (Jönköping
, December 18, 1828 – Djursholm
, September 21, 1895) was a Swedish
writer and a member of the Swedish Academy
, 1877-1895. "Primarily a classical idealist", Viktor Rydberg has been described as "Sweden's last Romantic
" and by 1859 was "generally regarded in the first rank of Swedish novelists."
epidemic
. Her death broke the spirit of his father, who yielded to hypochondria and alcoholism
, contributing towards his loss of employment and the family's apartment, forcing authorities to board young Viktor out to a series of foster homes, one of which burnt down, further traumatizing the youth.
Despite his economic status, Rydberg was recognized for his talents. From 1838 to 1847, Rydberg attended grammar school, and studied law at the University in Lund
from 1851 to 1852. Due to financial reasons, his university studies ended after one year, without a degree. Afterward, he took a job as a private tutor. In 1855, he was offered work at the Göteborgs Handels- och Sjöfartstidning, a newspaper in Göteborg, where he would remain employed for more than 20 years. It was during this time that his first novels saw print. He soon become a central figure of late Romanticism in Sweden, and Sweden's most famous living author.
Throughout his adult life, Rydberg was active in politics. In 1859, he wrote a pamphlet on national defense, which inspired the "Sharpshooter's movement", a voluntary militia of some political importance during the 1860s. In 1870, he took a controversial pro-German stance during the Franco-Prussian War
. Representing the traditional economic system of Sweden, from 1870 to 1872, Rydberg was a member of the Swedish Parliament as a supporter of the Peasant's Party. Having been a supporter of the Jewish cause since his youth, it was MP Viktor Rydberg who gave the keynote speech in the parliamentary debate to enact a law granting all non-Lutherans full civil rights. He worked diligently for working-class people and in 1906 his works on the labor question in both prose and poetry were regarded as part of the "treasury of this class." He also advocated language reform, purging foreign words from the Swedish language, particularly those of German origin. Around this time, he advocated a more Germanic spelling
of his own name: Viktor, as opposed to Victor.
Throughout his life and career, Rydberg would coin several Swedish words, many, such as "gudasaga" for the foreign "mythologi", still in use today. In 1884, he refused to support anarchist
writer August Strindberg
, in his blasphemy
case. As a juror in an 1888 trial of socialist leader Hjalmar Branting
, Rydberg voted to send him to jail for blasphemy. They would never speak to one another again. His apprehension of unregulated capitalism at the dawn of the industrial age is most fully expressed in his acclaimed poem Den nya Grottesången (The New Grotti Song) in which he delivered a fierce attack on the miserable working conditions in factories of the era, using the mill of Grottasöngr
as his literary backdrop.
For his lifetime of literary achievement, Rydberg received an honorary doctorate from the University of Uppsala in 1877 and was elected a member of the Swedish Academy
the same year. He served from 1883 as teacher, from 1884 as professor, of the History of Culture at Stockholms högskola, now Stockholm University
, and from 1889 as the first holder of the J. A. Berg Chair of the History and Theory of Art there. In 1889, he was also elected a member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences
.
Rydberg died at the age of 66 on September 21, 1895 due to complications from diabetes and arteriosclerosis
. Rydberg's passing was reported as far away as the United States of America, where the New York Times published an obituary titled: "Death of Prof. A.V. Rydberg, Career and Remarkable works of one of Sweden's Leading Men." A national day of mourning would ensue all over Sweden. Today, his grave is a national monument. Many of his works have been translated and remain in print. His works are widely read in schools throughout Sweden, and his poem "Tomten" ("Santa") is a Christmas favorite. A group of three charter high schools (Gymnasium) and one middle school in Stockholm, as well as a street in Götesborg, a student dormitory, and other buildings carry his name. He is still listed in many English language encyclopedias as an individual entry.
Since the late 1920s, scholars and critics have speculated about Rydberg's private life and sexual orientation. Referring to a failed engagement, Judith Moffett writes:
Svanberg (1928) and Stolpe (1978) suggested that Rydberg had a homosexual orientation, based on their interpretations of Rydberg's published works. Moffett (2001) endorsed Stolpe's theory, speculating that Rydberg's sexual orientation was the result of the early loss of his mother, concluding that Rydberg was homosexual but celibate. In her opinion, Rydberg found all sexual expression "despicable, impossible, or, at best, delicious but lethal." Sven Delblanc
(1983) argued that the novel Singoalla "reflected homosexual desires and impulses in Rydberg himself", and that the protagonist's slaying of his unacknowledged son Sorgborn ['child of sorrow'] was a "masked representation of homosexual intercourse." Bäckmann (2004) disputed this theory noting that there is "no textual evidence" to support this "empathetic reading" of Rydberg's biography.
This was soon followed by his first major success, and one of his most popular novels, Singoalla (1858), a "romantic story out of the Middle Ages, permeated with a poetic nature-mysticism, about the tragic love between a knight and a gypsy girl." Rydberg rewrote the book throughout his life. The fourth and final edition of 1894, concludes with Erland dying as a hermit monk. The story has been made into a film twice, and today, a popular brand of cookie takes its name from the book's main character: Singoalla. A review of the first English translation of the work in the Saga-Book of the Viking Club, Vol. 4, Part 1, 1904-5, noting that the book "has already been translated into most of the languages of continental Europe", remarks that "Singoalla is a novel occupying a pre-eminent place among Rydberg's prose writings."
In 1859, Rydberg's most ambitious novel, and his last one for thirty years, was published under the title Den siste Atenaren (The Last Athenian). This, his best-known novel, offers a contrast between "Rydberg's admiration for classical antiquity and his critical attitude to dogmatic Christianity." This struggle is set in Athens, in the time of the last pagan emperor, Julian the Apostate
, during the transition from Platonic paganism to Christianity. The novel advocates a philosophy founded on the noblest elements of both ideologies. At "scarcely thirty years of age", William Widgery Thomas, Jr. said that Rydberg was "already acknowledged to be the foremost living prose writer of Scandinavia."
In 1862 he wrote and published Bibelns lära om Kristus (The Bible's Doctrine concerning Christ), a work of contemporary religious criticism, which was hugely successful. Introducing modern Biblical criticism to Scandinavia, he used the New Testament
itself to deny the divinity of Christ
. "At a conference of the Swedish church in 1865, Mr. Rydberg ...and he pleaded his cause with so much eloquence as to make a favorable impression upon his most eminent official opponents. The agitation which he called forth made his name known throughout Sweden, and in 1870 he was elected a member of parliament, where he boldly advocated democratic principles."
The long term effects of the book would be the weakening of the authority of the Church over the educated classes of Scandinavia. August Strindberg "acknowledged the liberating influence of Rydberg's Bibelns lära om Kristus (The Bible's Doctrine Concerning Christ, 1862) on his generation (like David Friedrich Strauss and Ernst Renan)." He taught freedom of individual conscience. It was this that inspired him in the fight against the state church. Predictably, this book attracted the ire of the orthodox religious establishment and is generally credited for Rydberg's exclusion from the Swedish Academy
until as late as 1877. From 1865 to 1868, Rydberg suffered a severe bout of depression caused by the theological struggle and a broken engagement in 1865.
Rydberg's next work, Medeltidens Magi (The Magic of the Middle Ages) 1865 is an exposition of the magical practices and beliefs of the Medieval period. According to Rydberg, the contemporary Church was still driven by the ideology of the Dark Ages, and its dualistic notions of good and evil, represented by God and the Devil, Heaven and Hell, contributed towards the horror of the witch-hunts in Europe and America in the recent past. From this point forward, Rydberg was economically successful as a writer.
"Lille Viggs äventyr på julafton" ("Little Vigg's Adventures on Christmas Eve", 1871) is a short Christmas
tale for all ages, originally written for a newspaper, but later widely printed. It has since become a Christmas classic in Sweden.
After a long journey in Italy
in 1874, Rydberg published Romerska sägner om apostlarna Petrus och Paulus (Roman Legends concerning the Apostles Peter and Paul 1874) and Romerska Dagar (Roman Days 1877), a series of essays on Italian culture, history and archaeology; The journey is said to have strengthened Rydberg's creative power, as he now produced some of "the finest philosophical lyrics in Swedish literature". "His poems are not numerous, but their masterly form and wealth of thought give them rank among the best poetry in Swedish literature." Charles Wharton Stork remarks: "In the originality and forcefulness of his imagery Rydberg marks an important advance in Swedish poetry;" "there is a manliness in Rydberg's voice which makes the notes carry. His ideas are not the shadows of others, they are his by strong conviction."
Other important works include his translation of Goethe
's Faust
(1876) and the historical novel Vapensmeden (The Armoror, 1891), his first novel in three decades. Set during the Reformation
, the novel depicts the struggle between Lutheran Protestantism and Roman Catholicism. In it, Rydberg "still fought fanaticism and dogmatism, and his ideal was still humanity and liberty."
Between 1886 and 1889, his literary work was focused on Norse
and broader Germanic mythology
. "Rydberg had already begun, in the guise of fiction, to devote himself to cultural history, and this now continued in the form of a series of scientific investigations. These dealt first and foremost with religion and mythology." He published several works in the field including two articles on the origins of the Poetic Edda
poem Völuspá
, in which he debated the authenticity of the poem with Norwegian scholar Sophus Bugge
, who held that the poem was based on Classical and Biblical sources. An article in The Antiquary 1881, p. 65, describes Rydberg's response:
A century later, Old Norse scholar Ursula Dronke
characterizes this work similarly:
Even Sophus Bugge acknowledged that Rydberg won the argument, ushering in the modern age of Eddic scholarship by firmly vanquishing the nature-school of mythology. The result of his own investigations in prose was titled Segerssvärdet 1882, (The Sword of Victory), followed by two volumes of mythic studies titled Undersökningar i germanisk mythologi, första delen, 1886 (Investigations into Germanic Mythology, Volume 1); and Undersökningar i germanisk mythologi, andre delen, (Investigations into Germanic Mythology, Volume 2) 1889 as well as a children's version of Norse mythology in 1887 titled Fädernas gudasaga (Our Fathers' Godsaga). In a letter to Rydberg, after receiving the first volume of his mythological research, Bugge stated: "As I have read my heart has warmed more and more. ...Forgive these words from a man who before such a magnificent and in many respects remarkable work is well aware that he is nothing but a philologist."
Henrik Schück wrote at the turn of the 20th century that he considered Rydberg the "last —and poetically most gifted —of the mythological school founded by Jacob Grimm and represented by such men as Adalbert Kuhn" which is "strongly synthetic" in its understanding of myth. Of this work, Jan de Vries said:
During the 1880s, Rydberg also published two studies of runic inscriptions. His acceptance speech into the Swedish Academy, titled "Om Hjeltesagan å Rökstenen" (translated as "Concerning the Heroic-Saga on the Rök Runestone
") was published in English translation, with an introduction by Swedish Scholar Ola Östin, in its entirety in The Runestone Journal 1, 2007, a publication of the Asatru Folk Assembly
.
Rydberg's final publication, an essay titled Den hvita rasens framtid, "The Future of the White Race", was published posthumously as an introduction to the Swedish edition of Benjamin Kidd's Social Evolution. Noting that "Rydberg's conception of race is not equivalent with the modern term; the meaning he gives the word is in fact more cultural than biological, ...he includes Jews, Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists living in Asia, America and to some extent Africa in this expression." Swedish scholar Anna Lindén says "what he actually criticizes is a phenomenon within Europe, not on other continents", continuing,
In contrast to Kidd's optimistic Darwinism (all'ottimismo darwiniano di Kidd), Rydberg foresaw the possibility of European culture being overcome by the more industrious and more prolific Chinese nation. In this essay,
and Margaret Clunies Ross
have recently supported a chronological systemization of the most important mythic episodes as inherent in the oral tradition underlying Eddic poetry. Rydberg believed that most of the Germanic myths were part of a chronological epic, an approach that a later scholar, H. R. Ellis Davidson
, characterized by Davidson as neither taking into account outside influence nor source criticism.
While Rydberg's ingenuity has been recognized by some, his work has most often been criticized for being too subjective. Yet, within his work, many find points on which they can agree. In the first comprehensive review of the work in English, Rydberg's "brilliancy" and "great success" were recognized, alongside an acknowledgement that he sometimes "stumbles badly" in his effort to "reduce chaos to order." In 1976, German-language scholar Peter-Hans Naumann published the first evaluation of the full range of Viktor Rydberg's mythological writings. In 2004, Swedish Doktorand (PhD student) Anna Lindén reviewed the full two-volume work on mythology, concluding in part that it was not more widely received because it was not fully available in one of the three international languages of scholarship: English, German or French.
At the time of its publication, the German school of Nature mythology dominated the field, and contemporary scholars took a dim view of comparative mythology, which would come to flourish in the 20th century. Commenting on Rydberg's mythological work in 1902, Dutch Professor, P.D. Chantepie de la Saussaye, remarks:
"Rydberg's work was, then, stamped as a failure, and this verdict from certain points of view cannot be considered unjust, seems to have caused the book to fall into oblivion, a fate which surely it has not deserved." Among contemporary Swedish reviewers, Hildebrand and Bååth were appreciative, the latter unreservedly praising the work. In 1892, Irish scholar Stopford A. Brooke remarked: "When we have made every allowance for a certain fancifulness, and for the bias which a well-loved theory creates, this book is a real contribution to Northern mythology." While, in 1942, Fredrik Gadde concluded:
Since their publication, some of Rydberg's mythological theories have been cited in a number of other scholarly works including his theory regarding a World Mill
, the dead, various aspects of the world-tree Yggdrasil
, the afterlife and underworld and his identification of Harbard with Loki in the Poetic Edda poem Hárbarðsljóð
. He has been mentioned as one of several writers who proposed analogs of Ask and Embla
in comparative mythology, and who sought Indo-Iranian analogs for the Poetic Edda poem, Völuspá
. Marvin Taylor cites Rydberg's definition of the phrase, "dómr um dauðan hvern," as predating that of a more contemporary writer cited by the author in his review of Julia Zernack's Geschichten aus Thule, 1994, published in the Saga-Book of the Viking Society.
Jönköping
-Notable people:*Lillian Asplund, RMS Titanic survivor*John Bauer, illustrator, painter*Amy Diamond, singer*Agnetha Fältskog, ABBA*Carl Henrik Fredriksson, editor-in-chief and co-founder of Eurozine*Anders Gustafsson, kayaker, Olympian...
, December 18, 1828 – Djursholm
Djursholm
Djursholm is one of four suburban districts in, and the seat of Danderyd Municipality, Stockholm County, Sweden. Djursholm is included in the multi-municipal Stockholm urban area.-History:...
, September 21, 1895) was a Swedish
Sweden
Sweden , officially the Kingdom of Sweden , is a Nordic country on the Scandinavian Peninsula in Northern Europe. Sweden borders with Norway and Finland and is connected to Denmark by a bridge-tunnel across the Öresund....
writer and a member of the Swedish Academy
Swedish Academy
The Swedish Academy , founded in 1786 by King Gustav III, is one of the Royal Academies of Sweden.-History:The Swedish Academy was founded in 1786 by King Gustav III. Modelled after the Académie française, it has 18 members. The motto of the Academy is "Talent and Taste"...
, 1877-1895. "Primarily a classical idealist", Viktor Rydberg has been described as "Sweden's last Romantic
Romanticism
Romanticism was an artistic, literary and intellectual movement that originated in the second half of the 18th century in Europe, and gained strength in reaction to the Industrial Revolution...
" and by 1859 was "generally regarded in the first rank of Swedish novelists."
Biography
Viktor Rydberg was of humble parentage. One biographer notes that: "He had a hard struggle to satisfy the thirst for learning which was a leading passion of his life, but he finally attained distinction in several fields of scholarship." The son of a soldier turned prison guard, Johann Rydberg, and a midwife, Hedvig Düker. Viktor Rydberg had two brothers and three sisters. In 1834 his mother died during a choleraCholera
Cholera is an infection of the small intestine that is caused by the bacterium Vibrio cholerae. The main symptoms are profuse watery diarrhea and vomiting. Transmission occurs primarily by drinking or eating water or food that has been contaminated by the diarrhea of an infected person or the feces...
epidemic
Epidemic
In epidemiology, an epidemic , occurs when new cases of a certain disease, in a given human population, and during a given period, substantially exceed what is expected based on recent experience...
. Her death broke the spirit of his father, who yielded to hypochondria and alcoholism
Alcoholism
Alcoholism is a broad term for problems with alcohol, and is generally used to mean compulsive and uncontrolled consumption of alcoholic beverages, usually to the detriment of the drinker's health, personal relationships, and social standing...
, contributing towards his loss of employment and the family's apartment, forcing authorities to board young Viktor out to a series of foster homes, one of which burnt down, further traumatizing the youth.
Despite his economic status, Rydberg was recognized for his talents. From 1838 to 1847, Rydberg attended grammar school, and studied law at the University in Lund
Lund
-Main sights:During the 12th and 13th centuries, when the town was the seat of the archbishop, many churches and monasteries were built. At its peak, Lund had 27 churches, but most of them were demolished as result of the Reformation in 1536. Several medieval buildings remain, including Lund...
from 1851 to 1852. Due to financial reasons, his university studies ended after one year, without a degree. Afterward, he took a job as a private tutor. In 1855, he was offered work at the Göteborgs Handels- och Sjöfartstidning, a newspaper in Göteborg, where he would remain employed for more than 20 years. It was during this time that his first novels saw print. He soon become a central figure of late Romanticism in Sweden, and Sweden's most famous living author.
Throughout his adult life, Rydberg was active in politics. In 1859, he wrote a pamphlet on national defense, which inspired the "Sharpshooter's movement", a voluntary militia of some political importance during the 1860s. In 1870, he took a controversial pro-German stance during the Franco-Prussian War
Franco-Prussian War
The Franco-Prussian War or Franco-German War, often referred to in France as the 1870 War was a conflict between the Second French Empire and the Kingdom of Prussia. Prussia was aided by the North German Confederation, of which it was a member, and the South German states of Baden, Württemberg and...
. Representing the traditional economic system of Sweden, from 1870 to 1872, Rydberg was a member of the Swedish Parliament as a supporter of the Peasant's Party. Having been a supporter of the Jewish cause since his youth, it was MP Viktor Rydberg who gave the keynote speech in the parliamentary debate to enact a law granting all non-Lutherans full civil rights. He worked diligently for working-class people and in 1906 his works on the labor question in both prose and poetry were regarded as part of the "treasury of this class." He also advocated language reform, purging foreign words from the Swedish language, particularly those of German origin. Around this time, he advocated a more Germanic spelling
Germanic languages
The Germanic languages constitute a sub-branch of the Indo-European language family. The common ancestor of all of the languages in this branch is called Proto-Germanic , which was spoken in approximately the mid-1st millennium BC in Iron Age northern Europe...
of his own name: Viktor, as opposed to Victor.
Throughout his life and career, Rydberg would coin several Swedish words, many, such as "gudasaga" for the foreign "mythologi", still in use today. In 1884, he refused to support anarchist
Anarchism
Anarchism is generally defined as the political philosophy which holds the state to be undesirable, unnecessary, and harmful, or alternatively as opposing authority in the conduct of human relations...
writer August Strindberg
August Strindberg
Johan August Strindberg was a Swedish playwright, novelist, poet, essayist and painter. A prolific writer who often drew directly on his personal experience, Strindberg's career spanned four decades, during which time he wrote over 60 plays and more than 30 works of fiction, autobiography,...
, in his blasphemy
Blasphemy
Blasphemy is irreverence towards religious or holy persons or things. Some countries have laws to punish blasphemy, while others have laws to give recourse to those who are offended by blasphemy...
case. As a juror in an 1888 trial of socialist leader Hjalmar Branting
Hjalmar Branting
was a Swedish politician. He was the leader of the Swedish Social Democratic Party , and Prime Minister during three separate periods . When Branting came to power in 1920, he was the first Social Democratic Prime Minister of Sweden...
, Rydberg voted to send him to jail for blasphemy. They would never speak to one another again. His apprehension of unregulated capitalism at the dawn of the industrial age is most fully expressed in his acclaimed poem Den nya Grottesången (The New Grotti Song) in which he delivered a fierce attack on the miserable working conditions in factories of the era, using the mill of Grottasöngr
Grottasöngr
Grottasöngr or the Song of Grótti is an Old Norse poem, sometimes counted among the poems of the Poetic Edda as it appears in manuscripts that are later than the Codex Regius...
as his literary backdrop.
For his lifetime of literary achievement, Rydberg received an honorary doctorate from the University of Uppsala in 1877 and was elected a member of the Swedish Academy
Swedish Academy
The Swedish Academy , founded in 1786 by King Gustav III, is one of the Royal Academies of Sweden.-History:The Swedish Academy was founded in 1786 by King Gustav III. Modelled after the Académie française, it has 18 members. The motto of the Academy is "Talent and Taste"...
the same year. He served from 1883 as teacher, from 1884 as professor, of the History of Culture at Stockholms högskola, now Stockholm University
Stockholm University
Stockholm University is a state university in Stockholm, Sweden. It has over 28,000 students at four faculties, making it one of the largest universities in Scandinavia. The institution is also frequently regarded as one of the top 100 universities in the world...
, and from 1889 as the first holder of the J. A. Berg Chair of the History and Theory of Art there. In 1889, he was also elected a member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences
Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences
The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences or Kungliga Vetenskapsakademien is one of the Royal Academies of Sweden. The Academy is an independent, non-governmental scientific organization which acts to promote the sciences, primarily the natural sciences and mathematics.The Academy was founded on 2...
.
Rydberg died at the age of 66 on September 21, 1895 due to complications from diabetes and arteriosclerosis
Arteriosclerosis
Arteriosclerosis refers to a stiffening of arteries.Arteriosclerosis is a general term describing any hardening of medium or large arteries It should not be confused with "arteriolosclerosis" or "atherosclerosis".Also known by the name "myoconditis" which is...
. Rydberg's passing was reported as far away as the United States of America, where the New York Times published an obituary titled: "Death of Prof. A.V. Rydberg, Career and Remarkable works of one of Sweden's Leading Men." A national day of mourning would ensue all over Sweden. Today, his grave is a national monument. Many of his works have been translated and remain in print. His works are widely read in schools throughout Sweden, and his poem "Tomten" ("Santa") is a Christmas favorite. A group of three charter high schools (Gymnasium) and one middle school in Stockholm, as well as a street in Götesborg, a student dormitory, and other buildings carry his name. He is still listed in many English language encyclopedias as an individual entry.
Since the late 1920s, scholars and critics have speculated about Rydberg's private life and sexual orientation. Referring to a failed engagement, Judith Moffett writes:
We can construct a story of backdoor illicit liaisons and front door respectability from these fragments and others— Rydberg would hardly be the first, if it were true— but he never spoke openly about his private life at any time, and our best guess would still be guesswork.
Svanberg (1928) and Stolpe (1978) suggested that Rydberg had a homosexual orientation, based on their interpretations of Rydberg's published works. Moffett (2001) endorsed Stolpe's theory, speculating that Rydberg's sexual orientation was the result of the early loss of his mother, concluding that Rydberg was homosexual but celibate. In her opinion, Rydberg found all sexual expression "despicable, impossible, or, at best, delicious but lethal." Sven Delblanc
Sven Delblanc
Sven Delblanc, born May 26, 1931 in Swan River, Manitoba, Canada, died December 15, 1992 in Sunnersta, Gottsunda Parish, Uppsala, Sweden was a Swedish author and professor of literature. He is buried in Hammarby kyrkogård in Uppsala, Sweden....
(1983) argued that the novel Singoalla "reflected homosexual desires and impulses in Rydberg himself", and that the protagonist's slaying of his unacknowledged son Sorgborn ['child of sorrow'] was a "masked representation of homosexual intercourse." Bäckmann (2004) disputed this theory noting that there is "no textual evidence" to support this "empathetic reading" of Rydberg's biography.
Publications
In 1857, Rydberg's first novel, Fribytaren på Östersjön (The Freebooter of the Baltic; 1857), a historical romance set in the 17th century, incorporating themes of piracy, witchcraft and nautical excursions, was published.This was soon followed by his first major success, and one of his most popular novels, Singoalla (1858), a "romantic story out of the Middle Ages, permeated with a poetic nature-mysticism, about the tragic love between a knight and a gypsy girl." Rydberg rewrote the book throughout his life. The fourth and final edition of 1894, concludes with Erland dying as a hermit monk. The story has been made into a film twice, and today, a popular brand of cookie takes its name from the book's main character: Singoalla. A review of the first English translation of the work in the Saga-Book of the Viking Club, Vol. 4, Part 1, 1904-5, noting that the book "has already been translated into most of the languages of continental Europe", remarks that "Singoalla is a novel occupying a pre-eminent place among Rydberg's prose writings."
In 1859, Rydberg's most ambitious novel, and his last one for thirty years, was published under the title Den siste Atenaren (The Last Athenian). This, his best-known novel, offers a contrast between "Rydberg's admiration for classical antiquity and his critical attitude to dogmatic Christianity." This struggle is set in Athens, in the time of the last pagan emperor, Julian the Apostate
Julian the Apostate
Julian "the Apostate" , commonly known as Julian, or also Julian the Philosopher, was Roman Emperor from 361 to 363 and a noted philosopher and Greek writer....
, during the transition from Platonic paganism to Christianity. The novel advocates a philosophy founded on the noblest elements of both ideologies. At "scarcely thirty years of age", William Widgery Thomas, Jr. said that Rydberg was "already acknowledged to be the foremost living prose writer of Scandinavia."
In 1862 he wrote and published Bibelns lära om Kristus (The Bible's Doctrine concerning Christ), a work of contemporary religious criticism, which was hugely successful. Introducing modern Biblical criticism to Scandinavia, he used the New Testament
New Testament
The New Testament is the second major division of the Christian biblical canon, the first such division being the much longer Old Testament....
itself to deny the divinity of Christ
Christ
Christ is the English term for the Greek meaning "the anointed one". It is a translation of the Hebrew , usually transliterated into English as Messiah or Mashiach...
. "At a conference of the Swedish church in 1865, Mr. Rydberg ...and he pleaded his cause with so much eloquence as to make a favorable impression upon his most eminent official opponents. The agitation which he called forth made his name known throughout Sweden, and in 1870 he was elected a member of parliament, where he boldly advocated democratic principles."
The long term effects of the book would be the weakening of the authority of the Church over the educated classes of Scandinavia. August Strindberg "acknowledged the liberating influence of Rydberg's Bibelns lära om Kristus (The Bible's Doctrine Concerning Christ, 1862) on his generation (like David Friedrich Strauss and Ernst Renan)." He taught freedom of individual conscience. It was this that inspired him in the fight against the state church. Predictably, this book attracted the ire of the orthodox religious establishment and is generally credited for Rydberg's exclusion from the Swedish Academy
Swedish Academy
The Swedish Academy , founded in 1786 by King Gustav III, is one of the Royal Academies of Sweden.-History:The Swedish Academy was founded in 1786 by King Gustav III. Modelled after the Académie française, it has 18 members. The motto of the Academy is "Talent and Taste"...
until as late as 1877. From 1865 to 1868, Rydberg suffered a severe bout of depression caused by the theological struggle and a broken engagement in 1865.
Rydberg's next work, Medeltidens Magi (The Magic of the Middle Ages) 1865 is an exposition of the magical practices and beliefs of the Medieval period. According to Rydberg, the contemporary Church was still driven by the ideology of the Dark Ages, and its dualistic notions of good and evil, represented by God and the Devil, Heaven and Hell, contributed towards the horror of the witch-hunts in Europe and America in the recent past. From this point forward, Rydberg was economically successful as a writer.
Christmas
Christmas or Christmas Day is an annual holiday generally celebrated on December 25 by billions of people around the world. It is a Christian feast that commemorates the birth of Jesus Christ, liturgically closing the Advent season and initiating the season of Christmastide, which lasts twelve days...
tale for all ages, originally written for a newspaper, but later widely printed. It has since become a Christmas classic in Sweden.
After a long journey in Italy
Kingdom of Italy (1861–1946)
The Kingdom of Italy was a state forged in 1861 by the unification of Italy under the influence of the Kingdom of Sardinia, which was its legal predecessor state...
in 1874, Rydberg published Romerska sägner om apostlarna Petrus och Paulus (Roman Legends concerning the Apostles Peter and Paul 1874) and Romerska Dagar (Roman Days 1877), a series of essays on Italian culture, history and archaeology; The journey is said to have strengthened Rydberg's creative power, as he now produced some of "the finest philosophical lyrics in Swedish literature". "His poems are not numerous, but their masterly form and wealth of thought give them rank among the best poetry in Swedish literature." Charles Wharton Stork remarks: "In the originality and forcefulness of his imagery Rydberg marks an important advance in Swedish poetry;" "there is a manliness in Rydberg's voice which makes the notes carry. His ideas are not the shadows of others, they are his by strong conviction."
Other important works include his translation of Goethe
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe was a German writer, pictorial artist, biologist, theoretical physicist, and polymath. He is considered the supreme genius of modern German literature. His works span the fields of poetry, drama, prose, philosophy, and science. His Faust has been called the greatest long...
's Faust
Goethe's Faust
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe's Faust is a tragic play in two parts: and . Although written as a closet drama, it is the play with the largest audience numbers on German-language stages...
(1876) and the historical novel Vapensmeden (The Armoror, 1891), his first novel in three decades. Set during the Reformation
Protestant Reformation
The Protestant Reformation was a 16th-century split within Western Christianity initiated by Martin Luther, John Calvin and other early Protestants. The efforts of the self-described "reformers", who objected to the doctrines, rituals and ecclesiastical structure of the Roman Catholic Church, led...
, the novel depicts the struggle between Lutheran Protestantism and Roman Catholicism. In it, Rydberg "still fought fanaticism and dogmatism, and his ideal was still humanity and liberty."
Between 1886 and 1889, his literary work was focused on Norse
Norse mythology
Norse mythology, a subset of Germanic mythology, is the overall term for the myths, legends and beliefs about supernatural beings of Norse pagans. It flourished prior to the Christianization of Scandinavia, during the Early Middle Ages, and passed into Nordic folklore, with some aspects surviving...
and broader Germanic mythology
Germanic mythology
Germanic mythology is a comprehensive term for myths associated with historical Germanic paganism, including Norse mythology, Anglo-Saxon mythology, Continental Germanic mythology, and other versions of the mythologies of the Germanic peoples...
. "Rydberg had already begun, in the guise of fiction, to devote himself to cultural history, and this now continued in the form of a series of scientific investigations. These dealt first and foremost with religion and mythology." He published several works in the field including two articles on the origins of the Poetic Edda
Poetic Edda
The Poetic Edda is a collection of Old Norse poems primarily preserved in the Icelandic mediaeval manuscript Codex Regius. Along with Snorri Sturluson's Prose Edda, the Poetic Edda is the most important extant source on Norse mythology and Germanic heroic legends, and from the early 19th century...
poem Völuspá
Völuspá
Völuspá is the first and best known poem of the Poetic Edda. It tells the story of the creation of the world and its coming end related by a völva addressing Odin...
, in which he debated the authenticity of the poem with Norwegian scholar Sophus Bugge
Sophus Bugge
Sophus Bugge was a noted Norwegian philologist and linguist. His scientific work was directed to the study of runic inscriptions and Norse philology. Bugge is best known for his theories and his work on the runic alphabet and the Poetic Edda and Prose Edda. -Background:Elseus Sophus Bugge was...
, who held that the poem was based on Classical and Biblical sources. An article in The Antiquary 1881, p. 65, describes Rydberg's response:
"Against this last theory, the Swedish savant, Dr. Viktor Rydberg, of Gotenburg, has written a brilliant paper in the two first numbers of Nordisk Tidskrift for 1881. It is not too much to say, that a more crushing and masterly reply was never penned.
A century later, Old Norse scholar Ursula Dronke
Ursula Dronke
Ursula Dronke is a medievalist and former Reader in Old Norse at the University of Oxford. She is the Emeritus Vigfússon Reader in Ancient Icelandic Literature and Antiquities and an Emeritus Fellow of Linacre College. She also formerly taught in the Faculty of Modern and Medieval Languages at...
characterizes this work similarly:
"... over one hundred pages (as against Bang's twenty-three!) of marvellously intelligent, masterly criticism of the errors, imprecise thinking and failure of scholarly imagination that underlay Bang's claim."
Even Sophus Bugge acknowledged that Rydberg won the argument, ushering in the modern age of Eddic scholarship by firmly vanquishing the nature-school of mythology. The result of his own investigations in prose was titled Segerssvärdet 1882, (The Sword of Victory), followed by two volumes of mythic studies titled Undersökningar i germanisk mythologi, första delen, 1886 (Investigations into Germanic Mythology, Volume 1); and Undersökningar i germanisk mythologi, andre delen, (Investigations into Germanic Mythology, Volume 2) 1889 as well as a children's version of Norse mythology in 1887 titled Fädernas gudasaga (Our Fathers' Godsaga). In a letter to Rydberg, after receiving the first volume of his mythological research, Bugge stated: "As I have read my heart has warmed more and more. ...Forgive these words from a man who before such a magnificent and in many respects remarkable work is well aware that he is nothing but a philologist."
Henrik Schück wrote at the turn of the 20th century that he considered Rydberg the "last —and poetically most gifted —of the mythological school founded by Jacob Grimm and represented by such men as Adalbert Kuhn" which is "strongly synthetic" in its understanding of myth. Of this work, Jan de Vries said:
"At a time, when one was firmly convinced that the Old Norse myths were a late product, Rydberg's voice resounds. At that time, he swam against the stream, but he clearly expressed that which has become an ever stronger certainty today: a large part of the myths of the Germanic tradition —and that is to say basically the Old Norse tradition—must be set back in a time when the undivided Proto-Indo-European people themselves created the vessel of their worldview in myths."
During the 1880s, Rydberg also published two studies of runic inscriptions. His acceptance speech into the Swedish Academy, titled "Om Hjeltesagan å Rökstenen" (translated as "Concerning the Heroic-Saga on the Rök Runestone
Rök Runestone
The Rök Runestone is one of the most famous runestones, featuring the longest known runic inscription in stone. It can now be seen by the church in Rök , Östergötland, Sweden...
") was published in English translation, with an introduction by Swedish Scholar Ola Östin, in its entirety in The Runestone Journal 1, 2007, a publication of the Asatru Folk Assembly
Asatru Folk Assembly
The Asatru Folk Assembly, or AFA, an organization of Germanic neopaganism, is the US-based Ásatrú organization founded by Stephen McNallen in 1994. Gardell classifies the AFA as folkish....
.
Rydberg's final publication, an essay titled Den hvita rasens framtid, "The Future of the White Race", was published posthumously as an introduction to the Swedish edition of Benjamin Kidd's Social Evolution. Noting that "Rydberg's conception of race is not equivalent with the modern term; the meaning he gives the word is in fact more cultural than biological, ...he includes Jews, Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists living in Asia, America and to some extent Africa in this expression." Swedish scholar Anna Lindén says "what he actually criticizes is a phenomenon within Europe, not on other continents", continuing,
"The Swedish author is, unlike Kidd, not a Social Darwinist and far more pessimistic about the European future than the Irishman. A common feature is however that both of them view religion and ethics as most important for the survival of a "race".
"Evolution is rightly said to be one of the most typical theme in 19th century Europe, but parallel to this optimism in the second half of the century there was a widespread, nearly apocalyptic, anxiety for the degeneration of the population caused by exceptional fast development. Rydberg shared this anxiety: he was very critical to industrialism and unhealthy milieu of the big European metropolises, ...in combination with low nativity this was a dangerous threat to Europe, especially compared to the steadily growing, physically as well as morally sound population in China and the Far East. ...This lack of morals will in the long run ruin the ecological system as well as the poor people on our continent."
In contrast to Kidd's optimistic Darwinism (all'ottimismo darwiniano di Kidd), Rydberg foresaw the possibility of European culture being overcome by the more industrious and more prolific Chinese nation. In this essay,
"Rydberg's belief in a swift, negative transformation ... is not initially eugenic or biological; instead he advocates moral rearmament." "Rydberg envisioned European culture being overthrown by the Chinese. He predicted that the downfall would come in the very near future and would come about because of moral degeneration, demographic conditions, and the ensuing defects in the population."
Mythological works
There is no shortage of scholarly opinion and no consensus on Viktor Rydberg's works on Indo-European and Germanic mythology. Some scholars feel that his work is ingenious, while others feel the work is too speculative. One scholar expressed the opinion that "Rydberg's views" concerning resemblances of Thor and Indra were carried to extremes, therefore receiving "less recognition than they deserved," while another says "Rydberg correctly establishes, like many before and after him, the similarities with the myth of Thor and the Midgard serpent" with that of Indra and the dragon Vrtra. Others contest individual points of the work. While some scholars have praised Rydberg's method, still others have commented on what they see as fundamental flaws in his methodology, objecting to any systematization of the mythology including the one imposed by Snorri Sturlusson, believing it artificial. However, John LindowJohn Lindow
John Lindow is a professor specializing in Scandinavian medieval studies and folklore at the University of California, Berkeley and author. Lindow's works include Norse Mythology: A Guide to the Gods, Rituals, and Beliefs, a handbook for Norse mythology...
and Margaret Clunies Ross
Margaret Clunies Ross
Margaret Clunies Ross is the McCaughey Professor of English Language and Early English Literature and Director of the Centre for Medieval Studies at the University of Sydney. Her main research areas are Old Norse-Icelandic Studies and the history of their study. Since 1997 she has led the project...
have recently supported a chronological systemization of the most important mythic episodes as inherent in the oral tradition underlying Eddic poetry. Rydberg believed that most of the Germanic myths were part of a chronological epic, an approach that a later scholar, H. R. Ellis Davidson
H. R. Ellis Davidson
Dr. Hilda Roderick Ellis Davidson was an English antiquarian and academic, writing in particular on Germanic paganism and Celtic paganism. Davidson used literary, historical and archaeological evidence to discuss the stories and customs of Northern Europe...
, characterized by Davidson as neither taking into account outside influence nor source criticism.
While Rydberg's ingenuity has been recognized by some, his work has most often been criticized for being too subjective. Yet, within his work, many find points on which they can agree. In the first comprehensive review of the work in English, Rydberg's "brilliancy" and "great success" were recognized, alongside an acknowledgement that he sometimes "stumbles badly" in his effort to "reduce chaos to order." In 1976, German-language scholar Peter-Hans Naumann published the first evaluation of the full range of Viktor Rydberg's mythological writings. In 2004, Swedish Doktorand (PhD student) Anna Lindén reviewed the full two-volume work on mythology, concluding in part that it was not more widely received because it was not fully available in one of the three international languages of scholarship: English, German or French.
At the time of its publication, the German school of Nature mythology dominated the field, and contemporary scholars took a dim view of comparative mythology, which would come to flourish in the 20th century. Commenting on Rydberg's mythological work in 1902, Dutch Professor, P.D. Chantepie de la Saussaye, remarks:
"The comparative school has, even at the present time, some firm adherents. Among these may be reckoned the Swede, V. Rydberg, who shows great learning in the combination of various aspects of mythical narratives and according to whom even the cosmogonic myths are to be classed among the original possessions of the primitive Indo-European period. Such attempts, however, —of which this single example will suffice—lie outside of the current of modern development."As Fredrik Gadde has explained, it was in this context, that
"the book was reviewed by several German scholars, who all took up a more or less disparaging attitude towards Rydberg's methods of investigation and his results. Although they speak with high praise of the author's learning, his thorough insight, his ability to occasionally throw light upon intricate problems by means of ingenious suggestions, they criticize severely his hazardous etymologies, his identification of different mythical figures without sufficient grounds, his mixing up of heroic saga and myth, and, above all, his bent for remodeling myths in order to make them fit into a system which (they say) never existed."
"Rydberg's work was, then, stamped as a failure, and this verdict from certain points of view cannot be considered unjust, seems to have caused the book to fall into oblivion, a fate which surely it has not deserved." Among contemporary Swedish reviewers, Hildebrand and Bååth were appreciative, the latter unreservedly praising the work. In 1892, Irish scholar Stopford A. Brooke remarked: "When we have made every allowance for a certain fancifulness, and for the bias which a well-loved theory creates, this book is a real contribution to Northern mythology." While, in 1942, Fredrik Gadde concluded:
"Even though the views set forth by Rydberg never stood a chance of being accepted, there are points in his exposition that deserve being once more brought to light."
Since their publication, some of Rydberg's mythological theories have been cited in a number of other scholarly works including his theory regarding a World Mill
World Mill
The World Mill is a mytheme suggested as recurring in Indo-European and other mythologies. It involves the analogy of the cosmos or firmament and a rotating millstone....
, the dead, various aspects of the world-tree Yggdrasil
Yggdrasil
In Norse mythology, Yggdrasil is an immense tree that is central in Norse cosmology. It was said to be the world tree around which the nine worlds existed...
, the afterlife and underworld and his identification of Harbard with Loki in the Poetic Edda poem Hárbarðsljóð
Hárbarðsljóð
Hárbarðsljóð is one of the poems of the Poetic Edda, found in the Codex Regius and AM 748 I 4to manuscripts. It is a flyting poem with figures from Norse mythology-Synopsis:...
. He has been mentioned as one of several writers who proposed analogs of Ask and Embla
Ask and Embla
In Norse mythology, Ask and Embla —male and female respectively—were the first two humans, created by the gods. The pair are attested in both the Poetic Edda, compiled in the 13th century from earlier traditional sources, and the Prose Edda, written in the 13th century by Snorri Sturluson...
in comparative mythology, and who sought Indo-Iranian analogs for the Poetic Edda poem, Völuspá
Völuspá
Völuspá is the first and best known poem of the Poetic Edda. It tells the story of the creation of the world and its coming end related by a völva addressing Odin...
. Marvin Taylor cites Rydberg's definition of the phrase, "dómr um dauðan hvern," as predating that of a more contemporary writer cited by the author in his review of Julia Zernack's Geschichten aus Thule, 1994, published in the Saga-Book of the Viking Society.
Other sources
- Viktor Rydberg in the 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica
- Gustafson, Alrik, A History of Swedish Literature (Minneapolis, 1961)
- J. Moffett, 'Viktor Rydberg, 1828-1895', in The North! To the North!: Five Swedish Poets of the Nineteenth Century (2001).
External links
- Viktor Rydberg, His Life and Works, a Memorial by Tore Lund.
- Viktor Rydbergs Sällskapet (The Viktor Rydberg Society), publisher of the Journal Veratis, devoted to Rydberg's Life and Literature.
- Several works online at Projekt Runeberg (in Swedish)
- The Complete Mythological Works of Viktor Rydberg
- Viktor Rydberg and the comparative study of the history of Indo-European religion, by Anna Lindén, Doktorand, Lund University.
- The Invincible Sword of the Elf-Smith, The Complete Norse Mythology Set to Music, based on Rydberg's Fädernas Gudasaga. by Mats WendtMats WendtMats Wendt Born in 1965. Scandinavian classical composer and artist. Most international known work is Eddan - the invincible sword of the elf-smith, a 16 hour long "cybersymphonic" work on Norse mythology according to Viktor Rydberg...