| KELLGREN, JOHAN HENRIK (1751-1795),
Swedish poet and critic, was born at Floby in West Gothland, on the 1st
of December 1751. He studied at the university of Abo, and had already some
reputation as a poet when in 1774 he there became a "decent" in
aesthetics. Three years later he removed to Stockholm, where in conjunction
with Assessor Carl Lenngren he began in 1778 the publication of the journal
Stockholmsposten, of which he was sole editor from 1788 onwards. Kellgren
was librarian to Gustavus III. from 1780, and from 1785 his private secretary.
On the institution of the Swedish Academy in 1786 he was appointed one of
its first members. He died at Stockholm on the 20th of April 1795. His strong
satiric tendency led him into numerous controversies, the chief that with
the critic Thomas Thorild, against whom he directed his satire Nyt forsdk
ill orimmad vers, where he sneers at the "raving of Shakespeare"
and "the convulsions of Goethe," His lack of humour detracts from
the interest of his polemical writings. His poetical works are partly lyrical,
partly dramatic; of the plays the versification belongs to him, the plots
being due to Gustavus III. The songs interspersed in the four operas which
they produced in common, viz., Gustaf Vasa, Gustaf Adolfock Ebba Brake,
Aeneas i Kariago, and Drottning Kristina, are wholly the work
of Kellgren. From about the year 1788 a higher and graver feeling pervades
Kellgren's verses, partly owing to the influence of the works of Lessing
and Goethe, but probably more directly due to his controversy with Thorild.
Of his minor poems written before that date the most important are the charming
spring-song Vinterns valde lyktar, and the satrical Mina lojen
and Man eger ej snille for del man ar galen. The best productions
of what is called his later period are the satire Ljusets fiender,
the comic poem Dumboms lefverne, the warmly patriotic Kantatd.
in Jan. 1789, the ode Till Kristina, the fragment Sigwart och
Hilma, and the beautiful song Nya skapelsen, both in thought
and form the finest of his works. Among his lyrics are the choicest fruits
of the Gustavian age of Swedish letters. His earlier efforts, indeed, express
the superficial doubt and pert frivolousness characteristic of his time;
but in the works' of his riper years he is no mere "poet of pleasure,"
as Thorild contemptuously styled him, but a worthy exponent of earnest moral
feeling and wise human sympathies in felicitous and melodious verse. |
| His Samlade skrifter (3 vols.,
1796; a later edition, 1884-1885) were revised by himself. His correspondence
with Rosenstein and with Clewberg was edited by H. Schiick (1886-1888 and
1894). See Wieselgren, Sveriges skona lltteralur (1833-1849); Atterbom,
Svenska siare och skalder (1841-1855); C. W. Bottiger in Transactions
of the Swedish Academy, xlv. 107 seq. (1870); and Gustaf Ljunggren's Kellgren,
Leopold, och Thorild, and his Svenska vitterhetens hafder (1873-1877). |
