Torsten Rudeen (1661–1729) came from a comparatively humble background, but belonged to an influential group of Swedish academics and writers who went to school in Värmland and studied at Uppsala University. He was appointed poëseos professor at Turku (Åbo) University in 1692 and Superintendent (Bishop) in Karlstad in the fateful year of the battle of Poltava, 1709. By then he had contributed with royal panegyrics to the Kings Charles XI and Charles XII. He crowned his career as Bishop in Linköping. Rudeen was a productive and appreciated writer of occasional poetry, especially during the 1680s, but his most notable contributions are his love poems, not least those to his wife Anna (1675–1695). These were not printed in his own time and have never previously been scholarly collected and edited, a reason why Rudeen today is less known. This edition collects Rudeen’s poetry on love and matrimony. A total of 51 poems are included with variants and commentary. In the introduction his background and life path are presented, and the importance of the social networks for both his writings and career is underlined. The place of his love poetry in contemporary Swedish literature is discussed, as is his poetic immediacy of sentiments, unusual for the Swedish 17th century.
Vetenskaplig textkritisk utgåva. Critical edition.