Abstract
Hjalmar Bergman’s formally innovative 1919 novel The Markurells of Wadköping deals with the clash between the traditional aristocratic dispensation and the socially disruptive forces of modernity. These opposed orders are embodied in two characters, Carl-Magnus de Lorche and Herr Markurell, whose connections and conflicts come to represent the destiny of society as a whole as it attempts to cope with the emergence of the new.
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Notes
All translations of Swedish sources are my own.
All page references are to the Swedish text of Markurells i Wadköping; translations are by Johanna and Eric Sandberg, from a new translation of the novel forthcoming from Teneo Press.
His wife’s description of herself, as “hateful, maimed, abortive, twisted, not quite human” and the fact that she claims to be “birds of a feather” with her husband is another indication of the complexity of this modern aristocrat (p. 164).
The Order of Vasa, instituted by King Gustav III in 1772, was intended to recognize contributions to agriculture, mining, technical industries and commerce, and was open to all, a clear example of the aristocracy’s attempt to integrate non-aristocratic elements of the society into its formal structures (“The Order of Vasa”).
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Sandberg, E. “A peculiar day in the annals”: the collision of modernity and aristocracy in Hjalmar Bergman’s The Markurells of Wadköping . Neohelicon 42, 71–84 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11059-014-0272-7
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11059-014-0272-7