Är mången krans
Ever since the establishment, many years ago, of courses in Swedish in a few American colleges and universities the need of Swedish texts, supplied with vocabularies and explanatory notes after the model of the numerous excellent German and French editions, has been keenly felt.
Frithiof’s Saga by Esaias Tegnér - Full Text Archive
This need has become particularly pressing the last three years during which Swedish has been added to the curricula of a large number of high schools. The teachers in Swedish in these high schools as well as in colleges and universities have been greatly handicapped in their work by the lack of properly edited texts. It is clearly essential to the success of their endeavor to create an interest in the Swedish language and its literature, at the same time maintaining standards of scholarship that are on a level with those maintained by other modern foreign language departments, that a plentiful and varied supply of text material be furnished.
Sweden has since the days of Tegner been prolific in the creation of virile and wholesome literary masterpieces, but Fritiofs Saga by Tegner is still quite generally accorded the foremost place among the literary products of the nation. Tegner is still hailed as the prince of Swedish song by an admiring people and Fritiofs Saga remains, in popular estimation at least, the grand national epic.
Frithiof’s Saga by Esaias Tegnér
It has been translated into fourteen European languages, and the different English translations alone number approximately twenty. In German the number is almost as high. Several school editions having explanatory notes have appeared in Swedish and in Dr. George T. Flom, Professor of Scandinavian Languages and Literature of the University of Illinois edited a text with introduction, bibliography and explanatory notes in English, designed for use in American colleges and universities, but the present edition is the first one, as far as the editor is aware, to appear with an English vocabulary.
Fritiofs Saga abounds in mythological names and terms, as well as in idiomatic expressions, and the preparation of the explanatory notes has therefore been a perplexing task. A fairly complete statement under each mythological reference would in the aggregate reach the proportions of a treatise on Norse mythology, but the limitations of space made such elaboration impossible.
While brevity of expression has thus been the hard rule imposed by the necessity of keeping within bounds, it is hoped that the notes may nevertheless be found reasonably adequate in explaining the text. Many mythological names occur frequently and in different parts of the text, and as constant cross references in the notes would likely be found monotonous, an effort has been made to facilitate the matter of consulting and reviewing explanatory statements for these terms by adding an index table.
It has not been thought necessary or desirable to translate many idiomatic expressions in the text, as the vocabulary ought to enable the student, without the assistance of a lavish supply of notes, to get at the meaning. It would seem that the study of a foreign text would be most stimulating and invigorating to a student, if he himself be given a chance to wrestle with difficult sentences.
The introduction that precedes the text makes no pretension of being anything more than an attempt to state in broad outline the salient facts in the life of Tegner and in the genesis and development of the Fritiofs Saga theme. The text in the present edition has been modernized to conform with the orthography officially adopted in Sweden in The book owes much to the kindly suggestions and corrections of those who have examined it in proof or manuscript.
Special acknowledgment is due Professor A. Louis Elmquist of Northwestern University, who carefully revised the vocabulary, and to Mr. Olson of Rock Island, Ill. In the personality of Esaias Tegner the vigor and idealism of the Swedish people find their completest and most brilliant incarnation. A deep love of the grandeurs of nature, keen delight in adventure and daring deeds, a charming juvenility of spirit that at least in the prime of his life caused him to battle bravely and hopefully for great ideas, a clearness of perception and integrity of purpose that abhor shams and narrow prejudices and with reckless frankness denounce evils and abuses, a disposition tending at times to brooding and melancholy, all these elements, combined in Tegner, have made him the idealized type of the Swedish people.
He was cast in a heroic mold and his countrymen continue to regard him as the completed embodiment of their national ideals.
And in the same measure that Tegner stands forth as an expression of Swedish race characteristics it may be said that Fritiofs Saga is the quintessence of his own sentiments and ideals. The future poet was born on the 13 of November, , at Kyrkerud, Vaermland, his father holding a benefice in that province.
Agnes: Rosentid, hur hastelig - LiederNet
While he was yet a mere child of nine the father died and the family was left in poverty. A friend of the Tegner family, the judicial officer Branting, gave the young Esaias a home in his house. The lad soon wrote a good hand and was given a desk and a high, three-legged chair in the office. Branting took a fancy to the young clerk and soon fell into the habit of inviting him to accompany the master upon the many official journeys that had to be made through the bailiwick.
Thus Esaias came to see the glories of nature in his native province, and deep and lasting impressions were left upon his mind.
Midsommarstång – Wikipedia
His quick imagination was further stirred by the heroic sagas of the North, in the reading of which he at times became so absorbed that the flight of the hours or the passing events were entirely unnoticed by him. Branting, who had become convinced that his young clerk was by nature endowed for a much higher station than a lowly clerkship offered, generously provided Esaias with an opportunity for systematic study.
Independently of the instructor he at the same time acquired a knowledge of English and read principally the poems of Ossian, which greatly delighted him.