Information about the author:
Kseniia R. Andreichuk
Kseniia R. Andreichuk, PhD in Philology, Senior Researcher, A.M. Gorky Institute of World Literature of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Povarskaya 25 a, 121069 Moscow, Russia.
ORCID ID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8906-9607
E-mail:
Abstract:
The article discusses the applicability of the term “Neomythologism” to Swedish literature. A brief history of the concept is given. The role of myth and the peculiarities of addressing it in Swedish literature since the beginning of the 19th century are considered: the processing of folklore in the Christian spirit and the mythologization of history in Swedish Romanticism (by E. Tegnér, E. Stagnelius, P. Atterbom, etc.), the revision of Romantic myths and an attempt to combine myth and reality in Swedish Neoromanticism (in V. von Heidenstam and S. Lagerlöf). It is concluded that Neomythologism in Swedish literature can be spoken of in relation to Modernist authors: P. Lagerkvist, E. Johnson, H. Martinson, who use myth to build their image of modernity. It is shown that the formation of Swedish Neomythologism was influenced by Symbolist poetry, the concept of time of H. Bergson, the philosophy of F. Nietzsche, the ideas of the myth and ritual school (J. Frazer), the psychoanalysis of S. Freud and C. Jung, and by European Neomythologism (J. Joyce and T. Mann). It is argued that since the 1960s there is a gradual disappointment in myth as a way of holistic explanation of reality (L. Gyllensten, W. Kyrklund).
Keywords: Neomyhologism, myth, Swedish literature, P. Lagerkvist, E. Johnson, H. Martinson, V. von Heidenstam.
