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Rabbe Enckell (1903-1974) | |
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Writer and painter, one of the main theoreticians of Fenno-Swedish modernism. Enckell's production is interlaced with poetry, aphorisms, drama and prose. There are also symbols from ancient Greece and Rome in his verse and plays. With Edith Södergran, Elmer Diktonius, Gunnar Björling, and Henry Parland, Enckell became a member of a new avantgarde school of Swedish-speaking poets in Finland, who were committed to searching out and experimenting with new ideas and stylistic means. His brother Olof also gained fame as a critic, novelist, and literary scholar. "One can find nothing in life Rabbe Enckell, born in Tammela, was a member of a distinguished intellectual family. His father was Karl Enckell, a professor of agriculture (1853-1937). Olof, Enckell's brother (see below), was a prolific critic and literary scholar, while another, Torger, gained international reputation as a painter. Later Enckell portrayed his father in ESSAY OM LIVETS FRAMFART (1961). Enckell graduated from the high school Svenska normallyceum of Helsinki in 1921, and studied then art at the University of Helsinki. His first book, DIKTER, intense lyrics of love and nature, appeared in 1923. Next year he had his first art exhibition. At the age of nineteen, he began to contribute to the short-lived culture magazine Quosego, which was the forum of Finland-Swedish modernist writers and polemicized against "village romanticism." In his early artistic program Enckell declared that the "power which drives art to the highest achievements can not be anything but the interest in art". Quesego, like its predecessor Ultra (1922), attracted young writers who did not accept the aestheticism of the older generation, but at the same time they could accept the Romantic "art for art's sake" ideal. However, the young Fenno-Swedish modernist writers never formed any cohesive group. When Edith Södergran wrote visionary poems in Raivola, coping with the inevitability of death, Enckell was devoted to beauty and his observations of nature. "Havet ältar sina minnen, VÅRENS CISTERN (1931) presented Enckell's 'matchstick poems' equivalent of the Japanese haiku, in which he apprehended specifically the Finnish pastoral scene. IN TONBRÄDET (1935) the tone is resigned: "On earth happiness is prohibited" – the theme of human fate became central in later works. Enckell's fascination with antiquity, Greek and Roman myths, was seen in his verse collection LUTAD ÖVER BRUNNEN (1942), in which he occasionally uses classical meters. This work, published in the middle of the war, expressed alarm about the fate of man and humanistic ideals. Enckell also wrote Greek-inspired plays ORPHEUS OCH EURYDIKE (1938), and AGAMEMNON (1949). In ANDEDRÄKT AV KOPPAR (1946) he analyzed modern poetry itself. 'O prång av mellanord' (o steps of words between) was about language in which he joined Gunnar Björling who constantly struggled with the limits of language: "One finds nothing in life, / if one cannot find those words, / made transparent by that / which the spirit has in common with all and everything." When Björling solved the problem by attacking the language, Enckell relied on mystic unity with the world. From 1924 Enckell worked as an artist, also publishing nearly 40 books. He became first known as an essayist and theorist, who analysed modernist poetical language. Typical of his own work was precision of language and lucidity. According to Enckell, in the old lyrics the pictures appealed to our sight and the rhythm to our emotions, pictures in modernist lyrics appeal directly to our sight and hearing. Between the years 1929 and 1965 he made several journeys to France and Italy and had art exhibitions among others in Stockholm (1929, 1940, 1944), Oslo (1929, 1936), Moscow (1934-35), in Berlin, Düsseldorf and Hamburg (1935), in Milano and Rome (1935) and in Göteborg (1940), where later in 1956 Enckell also edited the art magazine Paletten. His paintings and other works of art are in several collections in Finland and abroad. Enckell was married three times, first to the critic and translator Heidi Runeberg (1925-41), who married the writer Oscar Parland, and then to the painter Alice Kaira (1943-46), and after divorce, to the painter Aina Dagny Maria Erikson (from 1949). In his early collections Enckell's poems were characterized by self-assurance and uninhibited expression, but after a personal crisis in the 1930s, his work began to reflect the fragility of human existence. From TORNBRÄDET (1935) Enckell started to use images from antiquity; he became a cool, meditative observer, strongly self-critical. His classical studies also gave birth to such verse plays as Orfeus och Eurydike, IOKASTA (1939), HEKUBA (1952), and MORDET PÅ KIRON (1954). In the late 1930s Enckell's cosmic views changed into microcosmic explorations: small animals and insects started to appear in his poems. As a theorist of modernism Enckell clarified that these images were meant to capture the reader with their fast movements before disappearing. After World War II Enckell gained fame in Sweden with ANDEDRÄKT AV KOPPAR (1946) and NIKE FLYR I VINDENS KLÄDNAD (1947). Its introduction was written by the Swedish modernist poet Erik Lindegren. As a prosaist Enckell generalized the results of his self-examination as common reactions. He was above-all an aesthetician, who cultivated an objective approach to his subjects in his confessional prose. In TILLBLIVELSE (1929), a collection of his early essays, and LJUSDUNKEL (1930), its title referring to the Italian word chiaroscuro, he examined loneliness, shyness, and alienation. Heidi Runeberg, his first wife, Encell portrayed in ETT PORTRÄTT (1931). LANDSKAPET MED DEN DUBBLA SKUGGAN (1933) contained a sketch of playground cruelty, 'The Japanese Children'. In 1960 Enckell became poeta laureus of the Swedish-language writers in Finland. From 1959 he lived in Porvoo at the Poet's House. In the 1960s Enckell was criticized by the political left as an elitist. George C. Schoolfied characterized in 1980 Enckell's RESONÖREN MED FÅGELFOTEN (1972) as a work, "where wisdom and insight are occasionally marred by a snobbish querulousness". (from Columbia Dictionary of Modern European Literature, 1980) Enckell died on June 17, 1974 in Helsinki. His last collection, FLYENDE SPEGEL, which included diarylike travel impressions, appeared posthumously in 1974. Olof (Wilhelm Toussaint) Enckell (1900 - 1989) was a Swedish-speaking Finnish author and literature historian. He studied at the University of Helsinki, receiving his M.A. in 1923 and Ph.D. in 1958. From 1921 to 1923 he worked at the library of the University of Helsinki, and from 1924 to 1932 he was a journalist at the newspaper Hufvudstadsbladet. In 1950 Encell become a professor of Swedish literature at the University of Helsinki, retiring in 1967. Enckell's first novels and short stories appeared in the 1930s, among them ETT KLOSTERÄVENTYR (1930), HALMSTACKEN (1931), VÅRT HJÄRTA (1933). Later he became interested in exploring new surroundings, which can be seen in his travel books from Carelia, Corse, Ireland etc. Among Enckell's scientific studies are DEN UNGE DIKTONIUS (1946), DEN UNGA HAGAR OLSSON (1949). - Selected works: ETT KLOSTERÄVENTYR (1930); HALMSTACKEN (1931); VÅRT HJÄRTA (1933); GULDKEDJAN (1934); OLIVPARADISET PÅ BANDITERNAS Ö (1934); DE KLAGANDE VINDARNAS Ö (1937); VAKT I ÖSTER (1939, Rajan vartio); KRIGAREN OCH BONDEN (1940, Talonpoika ja soturi); JÄGARNAS HISTORIA (1943, Jääkärien tarina); RAPPORT FRÅN ÖDEMARKEN (1943); SOLNEDGÅNG (1945, Auringonlasku); DEN UNGE DIKTONIUS (1946); ESTETICISM OCH NIETZSCHEANISM I EDITH SÖDERGRANS LYRIK (1949); DEN UNGA HAGAR OLSSON (1949); VAXDUKSHÄFTET (1961). Olof Enckell translated also works from such writers as Iris Uurto (Farväl Maria, 1936; Den tappra kärleken, 1937), Olavi Paavolainen (Flykten till en ny värld, 1938), Ilmari Kianto (Det röda strecket, 1946), Tyyni Tuulio (Florence Nightingale, 1950), Unto Seppänen (Markku och hans släkt, 1940), Gustaf Mattsson (I dag, 1950; I dag, 1955-56), Elmer Diktonius (Prosa 1925-1943, 1955; Meningar, 1957). For further reading: 'Canals on Mars' by G.C. Schoolfield, in Books Abroad, 36, pp. 9-19 (1962); A History of Finnish Literature by Jaakko Ahokas (1973); 'Rabbe Enckell' by Louise Ekelund, in Skrifter utgivna av Svenska Litteratursällskapet i Finland (1974); 'Four Finland-Swedish Prose Modernists' by K. Petherick , in Scandinavica, 15, pp. 45-62 (1976); Columbia Dictionary of Modern European Literature, ed. by Jean-Albert Bédé and William B. Edgerton (1980); 'Rabbe Enckel - lyriker av den svåra skolan' by Louise Ekelund, in Skrifter utgivna av Svenska Litteratursällskapet i Finland (1982); A History of Scandinavian Literature, 1870-1980 by Sven H. Rossel (1982); Under beständighetens stjärna by Mikael Enckell (1986); 'Avantgardet i öster' by Clas Zilliacus, in Den Svenska Litteraturen, vol. 5 (1989); Dess ljus lyse! En biografisk studie över Rabbe Enckell 1937-1950 by Mikael Enckell (1992); A Way to Measure Time, ed. by Bo Carpelan et al. (1992); Öppningen i taket. En biografisk studie över Rabbe Enckell 1950-1974 by Mikael Enckell (1997); Encyclopedia of World Literature, vol 2, ed. by Steven R. Serafin (1999) Selected works:
Some rights reserved Petri Liukkonen (author) & Ari Pesonen. Kuusankosken kaupunginkirjasto 2008 |
