I would like to introduce the concept of “hypostasis,” as a possible explanation how literary reality – and, ultimately, social reality – is created through its allegorical nature, through rhetorical figures like metaphors, etc.

Almost every literary theory runs into problems when it comes to making the leap from fiction to ”reality,” even though fiction seems to have a profound impact on our lives. One possible way to approach this problem has been proposed by the French cultural sociologist Pierre Bourdieu.

His concept of ”objectification” (objectivation) seems to offer a means to describe how successful writers actually create a social reality out of recognizable social phenomena.

But although this concept seems to be a promising approach to the question of the impact that fiction has on our lives, it only deals with it on a thematic level, not a stylistic one. And this despite the fact that the stylistic figures seem to constitute the essence of literature – its “literarity.”

When discussing literary style and language, fiction is not seldom defined as allegorical (metaphorical, etc.), and thus as something that distorts our everyday comprehension, makes us look at life anew, and creates new internal and interlingual relations. But while these analyses focus on figural language, they still seem to regard it as expressing a “secondary meaning,” while any possible reality is the “primary meaning.”

The concept of “hypostasis” points to the reality actually conceived through these rhetorical figures, through their primary or ordinary meaning on a non-allegorical level. Primarily in fiction – on a thematic level – but possibly through these themes also in a social reality.

Texter har alltid ansetts och använts som centrala källor för historievetenskaperna – brev, journalistik, protokoll, vittnesmål, etc. Men de skönlitterära har genom sin status av konstverk snarare blivit material att forska på än att forska med. De har, med romantiken som grund, fått status som enskilda individers subjektiva uttryck.

Med den utveckling av text- och tolkningsbegreppet som tog fart under 1960-talet kom den gamla uppdelningen mellan fakta och fiktion i gungning. Samtidigt ska det sägas att den i praktiken aldrig hade varit helt glasklar. Också de av tradition accepterade källorna måste kontrolleras och tolkas. Dessutom hade skönlitteraturen sedan länge inom den marxistiskt influerade litteratursociologin betraktats vara ett uttryck för samhällets rådande ekonomiska förhållanden. Den tillhörde den s.k. ”överbyggnaden” som reflekterade samhällets bas, d v s innehöll en samhällsanalys, som med ungraren György Lukács begrepp ”realismens triumf” på 1930-talet, dessutom var oberoende av upphovsmannens åsikter och intentioner. Men nu framhölls textens karaktär av formande medium långt starkare. I vissa fall till den grad att empirins status radikalt ifrågasattes, och ytterst om det alls har funnits något ’utanför’ texten.

I den här diskussionen har den franska sociologen Pierre Bourdieu kommit att inta en intressant mellanställning. I den modell eller med det perspektiv han har skapat för sina analyser av skönlitterära verk (grundad i den tolkningsmodell han har utvecklat under och för sina empiriska sociologiska/etnologiska studier) har han både velat framhålla deras beroende av den sociala kontext i vilken de skapats – som de därmed i viss grad återger. Men han menar dessutom att de skönlitterära verken genom att exemplifiera och konkretisera sociala förhållanden själva har varit med om att forma sin samtid.

Med Bourdieus modell går alltså båda dessa aspekter av skönlitteraturen att studera. De är på en gång källor som historiska rapporter men också centrala historiska händelser i sig själva.

David Gedin, Att få lov. Kvinnor och baler kring 1880-talet. (May I? Women at balls in the late Nineteenth Century.)

The ball, as central literary theme, symbol and milieu, is as old in Swedish literature as the bourgeois, realistic novel. But it is among female writers it occurs frequently, while it hardly exists among the men. The obvious reason is that in the life of an unmarried bourgeois woman, the ball was the scene and marketplace for her transformation from her old family and her role as daughter to a new one with herself as the mother.

Going to her first ball was a vital and delicate occasion. She was ”coming out”, that is, leaving the relatively secure and isolated harbour of the intimate sphere of the nuclear family, to become a public commodity on the market of match-making. Her value was a combination of her dowry, social background, looks and behaviour. This was the day of reckoning of her upbringing.

And her success did not only decide her own future, but also influenced that of her family. If she did not find a proper husband, her family would in most cases have to support her for the rest of her life. On the other hand, a good marriage could bee a great social and economical improvement for her parents, brothers and sisters. She could for example be able to take care of a less fortunate spinster sister.

Demands on appearance and behaviour of the young woman where both rigorous and paradoxical. A good wife should raise children and rule her household with a firm hand, live through pregnancy and childbirth, as well as see to her husband’s sexual needs. But to attract the attention of a man with good expectations and the financial possibility to marry, she should seem modest, controlled, innocent and attentive towards her husband’s wants. That is, to have a social and economical career, she had to appear to be without any financial considerations, and to become a mother she must seem totally ignorant of her sexuality.

It is no wonder that this dilemma required some help, and it was provided by the novels’ detailed descriptions of ideal male and female behaviour, as well as warnings of irresponsible and ruthless men and offensive female appearances, for example that of scheming or coquetry.

But though the market in the bourgeois, liberal society was far from romantic, it was at least to some extent free. Even though the stakes where high and the rules rigid, the ball represented an additional space, a period of possibilities and relative freedom. The time available was depending on the young woman’s desirability, but ought to, at the most, have lasted about ten years. From about the age of 16, 17 to about 27, 28.

By depicting this period in a young woman’s life – dealing with it at length – female authors did not only shed light on this freedom but also made the shadows of unhappy marriages or childhoods appear more distinctively.

This becomes more evident in the eighteen-eighties when the young generation of realistic writers stood up and criticized the established society. Female writers in particular described the business of courting and matchmaking at the balls without the traditional romantic glow of love and romance. In their stories it did not only appear as a short period of relative freedom but materialistic and cynical as well. Consequently the descriptions effectively worked as a severe critique against (the bourgeois) women’s situation at large.

This marked the beginning of the end of the nineteen-century balls, and both their practical and symbolic significance, in social life as well as in literature. This was that was emphasized and developed further by the next generation female writers. It becomes especially evident in the early works of Selma Lagelöf, in her unpublished epic poem ”Madame de Castro” or ”Marknadsbalen” (”The Market Ball”) written about 1885, and in ”Gösta Berlings saga” (1891). In those stories she expropriates the ball as a scene, transforming it into a stage populated by poets and artists. Matrimony, the patriarchate, social position, beauty and money are dismissed; that is, all of the central values in the construction of the hierarchy that defined the bourgeois women becomes but a petty background to the real drama of individuality, artistry and freedom. Moreover, the ball is banished to an artificial past in witch Lagerlöf is free to caricature and thereby sharply criticize the actual conditions of women. This way, she is giving life and form to the ongoing upheaval of the established order, and the banishing of the central practical and symbolical function of the balls at the threshold of the twentieth century.

David Gedin, Att få lov. Kvinnor och baler kring 1880-talet. (May I? Women at balls in the late Nineteenth Century.)

The ball, as a central literary theme, symbol and milieu, is as old in Swedish literature as the bourgeois, realistic novel. But it is among female writers that it occurs frequently, while it hardly exists among male authors. The obvious reason is that in the life of an unmarried bourgeois woman, the ball was the scene and marketplace for her transformation from her role as daughter to a new one as wife and another as mother.

Going to her first ball was an important and delicate occasion. She was “coming out”, that is, leaving the relatively secure and isolated hearth of the family, to become a commodity on the open match-making market. Her value was a combination of her dowry, social background, looks and behaviour. This was the day of reckoning of her upbringing.

And her success not only decided her own future, but also influenced that of her family. If she did not find a proper husband, her family would in most cases have to support her for the rest of her life. On the other hand, a good marriage could mean a great social and financial improvement for her parents, brothers and sisters. She could, for example, be able to take care of a less fortunate spinster sister.

Demands on the appearance and behaviour of the young woman were both rigorous and paradoxical. A good wife should raise children and rule her household with a firm hand, survive pregnancy and childbirth, and see to her husband’s sexual needs. But to attract the attention of a man with good prospects and the financial means to marry, she should appear modest, controlled, innocent and attentive towards her husband’s wishes. That is, to have a social and financial career, she had to appear to be without any monetary interests, and to become a mother she must seem totally unaware of her sexuality.

It is no wonder that young women required some help, and it was provided by the novels’ detailed descriptions of ideal male and female behaviour, as well as warnings about irresponsible and ruthless men and offensive female appearances, such as that of scheming or coquetry.

But though the market in the bourgeois, liberal society was far from romantic, it was at least, to some extent, free. Even though the stakes where high and the rules rigid, the ball represented an opening, a period of possibilities and relative freedom. The time available depended on the young woman’s desirability, but should have lasted no more than ten years, from the age of 16 to her mid to late twenties.

By depicting this period in a young woman’s life and dealing with it at length, female authors not only shed light on this freedom, but also made the shadows of unhappy marriages or childhoods appear more distinctly.

This becomes more evident in the eighteen-eighties, when the young generation of realistic writers stood up and criticized established society. Female writers described in particular detail the business of courting and matchmaking at the balls without the traditional romantic glow of love and romance. In their stories, it is also depicted as materialistic and cynical. Consequently, the descriptions effectively functioned as a severe critique of the situation of the bourgeois woman as well.

This marked the beginning of the end of the nineteenth century ball, and both their practical and symbolic significance, in social life as well as in literature. This development was emphasized further by the next generation of female writers. It becomes especially evident

in the early works of Selma Lagelöf, in her unpublished epic poem “Madame de Castro” or “Marknadsbalen” (“The Market Ball”), written about 1885, and in “Gösta Berlings saga” (1891). In those stories, she expropriates the ball as a scene, transforming it into a stage populated by poets and artists. Matrimony, the patriarchy, social position, beauty and money are dismissed; that is, all of the central values in the construction of the hierarchy that defined the bourgeois woman becomes but a petty background to the real drama of individuality, artistry and freedom. Moreover, the ball is banished to an artificial past in witch Lagerlöf is free to caricature and thereby sharply criticize the actual conditions of women. In this way, she gives life and form to the ongoing upheaval of the established order, and the banishing of the central practical and symbolic function of the balls at the threshold of the twentieth century.

Since the development of literary culture, people have endevoured to reproduce text without changing the content; i.e. to reduce variations of the text itself to a minimum. The invention of the printing press was an enormous leap forward, but copies still differed from each other due to the rudimentary technique. It was not until the turn of the nineteenth century that the ambition was accomplished.

Around the same time a new phenomenon surfaced: books published in numbered editions; i.e. editions of which each copy intentionally was made a unique, traceable entity. 

These editions are quite hard to find, library catalogues do not normally make any note of whether an edition is numbered, but they are possible to trace through newspaper articles, catalogues of bibliophile auctions, second-hand bookshops, etcetera. The goals of this project have therefore been twofold: the first to inventory numbered editions, published in Sweden and/or in Swedish and/or by Swedish printers and/or by publishers until 1915, and the second to make an analysis of the phenomenon and its function.

Among the close to 700 titles I have found, the very first numbered copies, two offprints, were published in 1819, but it was not until the 1840’s they began to be appear regularly. From then on, the practice became more and more common, rapidly increasing toward the end of the period; around 50 different editions and 10-20000 copies were published each year 1910-1915. (See the diagrams.)

Early on, numbered editions were primarily privately circulated, offered to individuals who shared a particular interest in a topic. As much as providing information or ideas, they identified and brought closer together a community. They functioned like membership cards to the authors like-minded peers, whose affinity were acknowledged through the books, for example about Sweden’s diplomatic history or about controversial etymological theories, etcetera.

In the 1870’s another larger group of editions was added to the first one, governed by the same logic, but used for slightly different purposes. This group consisted  mainly of comedies, satires, and the like, written by and for students at the universities, printed in small numbers for the participants and their friends. These editions , like the first group,functioned as a confirmation of group membership, but because of the indecent, sometimes even lewd content, there was now also an actual need to control the distribution. This goes also for at least one volume with questionable religious content.

During the next decade editions connected to family and heritage became more frequent. First especially among the nobles, in books about their ancestry, the family’s art collections and heirlooms, etcetera, but over time family histories and genealogical tables were also published by commoners in numbered editions. Many of them included a printed list of the recipients, which emphasized each member’s connection to the family. They were thus able to contemplate their kinship any time they opened this page.

In the last decades of the nineteenth century, an interest for small, rare editions became more prominent among book collectors, creating a new niche market. This coincided with an increasing enthusiasm for ”bibliophile editions”, ”luxury bindings” and ”splendour bindings”, i.e. books as artefacts. As a consequence, any variance of a book became important: not only it’s binding, but also variations like different kind of paper in the insert. It is no coincidence that the very first book I found which was named a ”bibliophile-edition” in the newspapers was printed in 1878 in twenty-five numbered copies on eighteen different quality of and/or colours of paper.

Book publishers now began to print parts of the editions on better and/or larger paper, usually in expensive book bindings. They were quite often numbered, to profit on the air of exclusivity provided by the conspicuous rarity, and sold for a much higher price.

This coincided with developing criticism against the current state of the artistic and decorative elements of books: fonts, vignettes, bindings, etcetera. There was demand for a new, more deliberate aesthetic and improved workmanship, grounded in the specific national culture and influenced, at least in part, by the Art and Crafts-movement

The most significant response to the new demand was the founding of ”Bröderna Lagerström” in 1903, primarily inspired by William Morris’ Kelmscott Press and the Private Press-movement.  The younger of the two founding brothers was deeply involved in all aspects of the development of printing and publishing: he organized education in typography, participated in interest groups, wrote articles and books, did printing, created new fonts, etcetera.

Their editions were regularly numbered, sometimes putting together several separately numbered editions of the same book with different quality of paper in different number sequences: ”Japanese”, ”Dutch”, linen paper, parchment paper, etcetera.

Their focus on books as artefacts can be illustrated by their publication of August Strindberg’s Antibarbarus 1906. The brothers asked for a manuscript from the famous author, any manuscript, and were offered an obscure scientific speculation no one in Sweden wanted to print. The brothers published it in a lavish leather binding, fully illustrated with vignettes and initials in red, with very little concern for the content of the text. It was a piece of art rather than a book, published in 299 numbered copies.

This is also a sign of the increasing polarization of the book market at the turn of the century. While artists were more and more involved in the creation of luxury volumes, and book designers became more and more prominent in the early years of the twentieth century, there was a parallel move to introduce series of very cheap books in large editions. The inventive head of the publishing company AB Ljus, Henrik Koppel, was one of the first to publish a series of numbered editions for the market in 1901: a number of monographs on famous artists. But in 1904 he ended that book series and introduced instead a very successful imprint of mass market books by well renowned authors in extremely simple design, printed on low quality paper in huge editions and sold at an extremely low price. While Antibarbarus would cost 30 S.kr. you could now buy Strindberg’s classic short story-collection Getting Married (Giftas) for just 1 S.kr.

The new mass market prints did not lead to the demise of the numbered or specialized prints. Instead, they proliferated to the point where it becomes almost impossible to track the many titles. However, all the main functions had been established when this inventory ends in 1915.

The city plays, no doubt, a mayor role in Strindberg’s fiction. He returns to this playground as if it was the scene of a crime, over and over again during his career. In Red Room (Röda rummet)1879, Inferno 1897, Alone (Ensam) 1903 the protagonist’s experiences are reflected and governed by the structure of the city. But the relation between the protagonist and the surroundings changes over time.

In The Red Room, is Arvid Falk trying to conquer the city, but is caught in a web; a horizontal as well as vertical structure of social and economic power by which his movements as well as the narrative are defined.

In Inferno the view of the city has narrowed and the reader experiences it through the eyes of the narrator. The earlier look from the outside has now become a flow of impressions/meaning/filled with messages in need of interpretations. The protagonist, repeatedly emphasizing the truth of the events, bears witness of an outside world saturated with meaning.

Back in Stockholm from Paris, the relation between the protagonist and the city is transformed even further. After a symbolic rejection of his old comrades, the narrator in Alone alienates himself. He creates it an inner urban landscape composed of his own reflections, memories and dreams. He has finally accomplished Arvid Falk’s ambition, and not only subdued the city but engulfed it.

Tecknade serier har funnits i sin moderna form sedan slutet på 1800-talet. I Sverige kom genombrottet kring 1980. Serietecknare som Joakim Pirinen, Inger Edelfeldt, Lena Ackebo, Charlie Christensen, Joakim Lindengren och deras generationskamrater har följts av nya vågor av serieskapare som Liv Strömquist och Martin Kellerman, tills mediet idag är ett av de mest kreativa och intressanta. Trots det har det i hög grad förbisetts inom den akademiska forskningen. Denna antologi vill bidra till att råda bot på den bristen. Den innehåller ett brett spektrum av texter, allt ifrån en inledande beskrivning av ”vuxenseriernas” framväxt i Sverige till en diskussion om produktionsvillkoren och de tecknade seriernas framtid.

De medverkande tillhör de mest framträdande inom området. De är film-, konst- och litteraturvetare, liksom förläggare, redaktörer, översättare och serieskapare.

Kristina Arnerud Mejhammar: Tecknade serier för vuxna i Sverige från 1960-tal till 2016: en introduktion

David Gedin: Bildligt bokstavligt, bokstavligt bildligt

Hans-Christian Christiansen: En metode til tegneserieanalyse: komparativ analyse af film og tegneserie

Thierry Groensteen: Mer om sammanflätning i serier (Précisions sur l'art du tressage)

Aude Pasquier: Tegneserier, boblespråk og hvorfor oversettere får insomnia

Nina Ernst: Det tecknade jaget. Berättarstrategier i den självbiografiska serieromanen

Camilla Storskog: Topelius i serieformat. Interikonicitet som visuell berättarstrategi i Bovils Fältskärns berättelser

Anna Nordenstam & Margareta Wallin Wictorin: ”Högerideologi som dansbandsmelodi”. Politisk satir i svenska feministiska serier

Boel Westin:Transmedial muminologi. Konst och berättande i Tove Janssons tecknade serie Mumin

Per Israelson: Mörka medier. Lovecraft och svensk fantastikserie

Samtal med Rolf Classon

Panelsamtal: Fabian Göranson, Ola Hellsten, Fredrik Strömberg, Josefin Svenske & Rolf Classon

Uppsatsen består av två delar. I den första, helt dominerande delen, sammanfattas en del av de forskningsresultat kring det kulturella fältet i Sverige under 1880-talet som jag presenterat i avhandlingen Fältets herrar. Framväxten av en modern konstnärsroll. Artonhundraåttitalet (Stockholm/Stehag, 2004). I den andra, korta, avslutande delen tar jag upp några teoretiska problem kring de begrepp som skapats av Pierre Bourdieu och som ligger till grund för undersökningen. Också dessa resonemang återfinns i avhandlingen. Eftersom framställningen i princip enbart redogör för den redan redovisade forskningen i avhandlingen inskränker jag noterna till de direkta citat som finns i texten. I övrigt hänvisar jag till huvudkällan.

I första hand är min avsikt att göra en inventering av Strindberg inom seriekonsten, dels av de gånger han dyker upp tillfälligt som en symbol eller en ikon, dels av de verk där han spelar en mer central roll. Däremot saknas utrymme för mer systematiska analyser, men jag kommer ge några mer enstaka reflexioner som ändå, förhoppningsvis, visar på mediets kreativa kraft

In this article, I argue first that text is an inherent element in all comics—i.e., comics are rather a text made out of drawings than a movie made of stills. Secondly, and more important, that the essential element in the multimodal medium of comics is what I call “format codings.” Format codings are in themselves neither text nor images, but a third category separate, inseparable from text and/or narrative images. They not only affect the meaning of a sentence or a strip, they regulate crucial elements such as the rhythm, the perceived time, the reading order of a comic page, and the status of the lines. Furthermore, it determines the way in which we interpret the combined or separate information of text or images. In other words, format codings serve as the intermediary between text and images, and while there can be comics without words as well as comics without images, there can- not be comics without them.

The dissertation describes a crucial step in the development of a modern writer's identity in Sweden. It applies the French sociologist Pierre Bourdieu’s theories of the autonomous ”literary field” to the development in eighteen-eighties, one of the most important periods in Swedish literary history.

During this decade a large group of authors appeared, with August Strindberg in the front. In accordance with the dominating esthetical view of the nineteenth century, ”ideal realism”, the writers had an ethical responsibility. But they differed from their predecessors by not being loyal to the bourgeois society and its values, as codified in the concept of ”decency”, that contained, among other things, rules for what could be said in public. On the contrary, the new generation of authors attacked the bourgeoisie in novels, dramas and articles, especially in the singularly most controversial area, the regulation of sexuality and the ideals of bourgeois women.

This study argues that the new authors in their radical criticism aimed at the position of power in society traditionally upheld by the State church, which supervised education and ethical values. They did this by creating a role for themselves as young and oppressed, something that made it possible to deny any responsibility for the present state and furthermore to speak up, despite their own bourgeois background, for other oppressed groups like the working classes, the poor and women. But this also meant that they could not be successful in their ambitions to gain influence without loosing their identity. This was especially the consequence of the fact that an autonomous ”literary field” did not yet exist. That is, there were no internal literary institutions that, seemingly independent of the rest of society, decided what was ”good literature.” Instead, the singularly most important judge of interesting literature was the bourgeois public. Strindberg seems to have realised this early, and achieved an identity as ”uncontrolled”. He thereby lost his intellectual credibility, but gained a much bigger freedom to write and also got the attention of the large audience. At the same time, his writing undermined the values of decency by breaking the bourgeois society’s fundamental wall between the private and the public sphere, not least by writing what was regarded as facts about his own private life.

The conservative reaction accelerated towards the end of the decade while the authors grew more and more bitter about the public’s lack of understanding. At this point the author Verner von Heidenstam took the opportunity to declare a new literary era, dissociating his aesthetics from the one of the Eighties and proclaiming the necessity of an aristocratic, ethically indifferent literature (with himself as its leader).

Confronted with the new concept of what ought to be regarded as “modern”, the established male authors were generally quick to separate themselves from the female authors, and to identify the attacked literature solely with the one that critically discussed the situation of women in society - a description that has been largely adopted in the history of literature. A number of male authors also wrote novels separating themselves from the Eighties. Thus, they could continue into the new period, while female authors in general were silenced or forced to write in less esteemed genres (”popular literature”, children’s books).

Ultimately the result was a more distinct male domination coupled with a growing contempt for the large audience. This, in turn, created a need for internal institutions that could interpret, value and support literature - scholarships, elitist critics, and a writers’ union. These institutions subsequently were founded or developed during the nineties – all of them steps towards autonomy.