History of Swedish Literature

Steene, Birgitta

doi:10.1215/00267929-22-4-406

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“…Today, this term is commonly used to refer to a special period in literature in which Sweden, Denmark, and Norway were exceptionally closely related in the literary marketplace. Following the input from Brandes, several writers, dramatists, thinkers, and painters proved ready to play a more active role in debates evolving around pressing social issues of their time, including inequality of the sexes, women's rights, double standards in matrimonial morality, female sexuality, emancipation, and prostitution (Ahlström 1947;Bredsdorff 1973;Hägg 1996;Steene 1996;Van der Liet 2004).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Figure of the Prostitute in Scandinavian Women’s Literature of The Modern Breakthrough

Brouwer-Turci¹,

Liet²

2018

Scand

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Despite the fact that prostitution and the figure of the prostitute as represented in Scandinavian women's literature of the last decades of the nineteenth-century is a significant topic, a systematic study on the role of prostitution in Scandinavian women's literature of The Modern Breakthrough is largely lacking. This article, in which prostitution is conceptualised in the broadest meaning of the word, analyses the literary representations of the figure of the prostitute in the novel Lucie (1888) written by the Dano-Norwegian Amalie Skram, Rikka Gan (1904) by the Norwegian Ragnhild Jølsen, and the Swedish novella Aurore Bunge (1883) by Anne Charlotte Leffler. By means of close textual analysis, this article analyses how prostitution is represented in these three works and explores what factors were at play in causing the protagonist to be 'fallen' and with what consequences. The findings highlight the psychological and social implications of three unique forms of prostitution: prostitution within the marriage, a socially constructed form of prostitution as a shadow hanging over a marriage, and a relational form of prostitution parallel to a marriage.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%