Edith
Södergran (Finland / writes in Swedish)
1892-1923
Born
of Finland-Swedish parents, Edith Södergran was educated at a German school in
St. Petersburg. Moreover, she contracted tuberculosis early in her life, and
was a patient in the sanatorium at Davos, Switzerland in 1912-13 and again in
1913-14. Accordingly, her early work is reminiscent of the German romantics,
particularly of Heine, rather than being influence by her native language.
In the beginning of World War I, she
settled with her mother at Raivola on the Karelian Isthmus of Finland, an area
in which most of the natives spoke Finnish. Extremely isolated, Södergran
expanded her girlhood fantasies of taking the Finnish literary world by storm,
and made two trips to Helsinki to show her manuscripts. There she met Hugo
Bergroth, who persuaded her to abandon the German language for Swedish. Yet
Södergran was little influenced by contemporary Swedish writing, but rather
looked back to C. J. L. Almqvist of the late 18th and early 19th century, whose
romantic heroine in Drottningens juvelsmycke was androgynous.
It is presumed that an unsuccessful love
affair was the inspiration of her first book, Dikter, of 1916. The
reaction to this book was one of open ridicule or perplexity at best. A final
attempt to enter the Finland-Swedish literary circles ended in disaster, and
Södergran fled back to Raivola.
The October revolution took away the
family savings in Russia, and they were left with poverty and illness. A period
of severe depression followed, and it was only after reading Nietzsche and
after the major events of the Finnish civil war that Södergran was awakened to
a new sense of possibility, expressed in Septemberlyran (The September
Lyre) of 1918. That book, however, only brought severe doubts about her sanity.
One positive review by the critic and novelist Hagar Olsson led to a close and
sustained friendship between the two women and to the composition of Rosenaltaret
(The Rose Altar) of 1919, which advocated a cult of female beauty and an erotic
"sisterhood."
Her conversion, brought about by the writings
of Rudolf Steiner and a vision of primitive Christian ritual, led Södergran to
abandon poetry after 1920 until the very end of her life. By the 1930s
Södergran's work had become broadly admired, and her home in Raivola became a
shrine to aspiring lyricists. Among her many admirers were the Swedish poet
Gunnar Ekelöf (see PIP Anthology, volume 1) and the Finnish poet Uuno Kailas
(1901-1933).
BOOKS
OF POETRY
Dikter (Helsinki: Holger
Schildts Förlagsaktiebolag, 1916); Septemberlyran (Helsinki: Holger Schildts
Förlagsaktiebolag, 1918); Rosenaltaret (Helsinki: Holger Schildts
Förlagsaktiebolag, 1919); Framtidens skugga (Helsinki: Holger Schildts
Förlagsaktiebolag); Landet som icke är (Helsinki: Holger Schildts
Förlagsaktiebolag, 1925); Samlade dikter, edited by Gunnar Tideström
(Helsinki: Holger Schildts Förlagsaktiebolag, 1949 and later editions); Samlade
skrifter I: Dikter och aforismer, edited by Holger Lillqvist (Helsinki:
Holger Schildts Förlagsaktiebolag, 1990).
ENGLISH
LANGUAGE TRANSLATIONS
Poems, translated by
Gounil Brown (Croesor, Wales: Zena Publications, 1990); Love & Solitude:
Selected Poems 1916-1923, translated by Stina Katchadourian (Seattle: Fjord
Press, 1992).
Violet
Twilights
Violet
twilights I carry within me from my ancient past,
naked
virgins playing with galloping centaurs...
Yellow
sunshine days with bright glances,
only
sunbeams pay proper homage to a tender female body...
No
man has yet arrived, has ever been, will ever be...
A
man is a false mirror that the sun's daughter hurls against the cliffs in rage,
a
man is a lie, incomprehensible to pure children,
a
man is a rotten fruit rejected by proud lips.
Beautiful
sisters, come high up to the strongest rocks,
we
are all fighting women, heroines, horsewomen,
eyes
of innocence, brows of heaven, rosy faces,
heavy
breakers and soaring birds,
we
are the least expected and the darkest red,
tigerspots,
taut strings, fearless stars.
─Translated
from the Finland-Swedish by Stina Katchadourian
(from
Dikter, 1916)
Vierge
Moderne
I
am no woman. I am a neuter.
I
am a child, a page-boy, and a bold decision,
I
am a laughing streak of a scarlet sun...
I
am a net for all voracious fish,
I
am a toast to every woman's honor,
I
am a step toward luck and toward ruin,
I
am a leap in freedom and the self...
I
am the whisper of desire in a man's ear,
I
am the soul's shivering, the flesh's longing and denial,
I
am an entry sign to new paradises.
I
am a flame, searching and brave,
I
am water, deep yet bold only to the knees,
I
am fire and water, honestly combined, on free terms...
─Translated
from the Finland-Swedish by Stina Katchadourian
(from
Dikter, 1916)
Hell
Oh
the magnificence of hell!
In
hell no one speaks of death.
Hell
is walled up in the bowels of the earth
and
adorned with glowing flowers...
In
hell no one says an empty word...
In
hell no one has drunk and no one has slept
and
no one rests and no one sits still.
In
hell no one speaks but everyone screams,
there,
tears are not tears and all grief is powerless.
In
hell no one falls ill and no one tires.
Hell
is constant and eternal.
─Translated
from the Finland-Swedish by Stina Katchadourian
(from
Dikter, 1916)
Marches
of the Future
Tear
down all triumphal arches─
the
arches are too low.
Make
room for our fantastic marches!
The
future is heavy─build the bridges
for
eternity.
Giants,
carry rocks from the ends of the world!
Demons,
pour oil under the cauldrons!
Monster,
gauge the measures with your tail!
Rise
up in the heavens, heroic figures,
fateful
hands─begin your work.
Break
loose a piece from heaven. Blazing.
We
shall grapple and fight.
We
shall struggle for the future's manna.
Rise
up, heralds,
even
now strangely visible from afar,
the
day demands your drumbeat.
─Translated
from the Finland-Swedish by Stina Katchadourian
(from
Septemberlyran, 1918)
Permissions
"Violet
Twilights," "Vierge Moderne," "Hell," and
"Marches of the Future"
Reprinted
from Love & Solitude: Selected Poems 1916-1923, trans by Stina
Katchadourian (Seattle: Fjord Press, 1992). Copyright ©1992 by Stina
Katchadourian. Reprinted by permission of Fjord Press
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