Maria Karlsson, Litteratur, Uppsala University

2007-2013

The research on the reception of Selma Lagerlöf's authorship has mainly been concerned with the literary elite's view of Lagerlöf, but has shown little interest in other sources of reception. The aim of this project is to study the public's image of Lagerlöf, as well as how she was read by ordinary readers according to the many thousands of letters to the author. Why, where, how and by whom was Lagerlöf's works read? What do the letters say about the role of the author and the image of the author? Another aim is to discuss methodological issues: How can more than 42 000 letters to the author be used as a source in reception history and what do they prove?

Results

1. A database has been created for the project's main corpus, that is; the letters from the Swedish public to Lagerlöf 1891-1940. The collection is valuable and unusual both because of its size and the heterogeneity of the senders. In total the database contains 21640 digitized letter pages. More than 30 keywords are attached to them and in addition to this, it is also possible to search for metadata such as the name and place of the sender and the year that the letter was sent. The database has been an important tool for the project, but is also to be seen as a result, since it makes available the material for the benefit of further investigations of the material. The database is built in Adobe Lightroom, a software designed to handle sizeable collections of digitized photos and allows for exporting metadata to xml for independent use of software.


2. The results of the project have both verified and challenged established opinions about reading in the past, as well as previous research in the field of history of reading. It is for instance clear that reading aloud is frequently practised in the homes; that the same text is read over and over again; and that the body and different feelings are commonly manifested, not only in the letters by women but also in the ones by men, no matter class or age. Many representations of feelings in the letters seem to be inspired by Lagerlöf's works - when the heart of the emperor of Portugallia in the novel starts ponding, the hearts of the readers tend to pond too.

It is possible to relate different reading practices to categories of class, gender, age, but the way these factors interact is very complex. For instance, purely aesthetic readings are more frequent in the letters from the middle and the upper classes, but that is not always the case. Moreover, the letters focusing on the aesthetic qualities of the text are usually representing identificatory, ethic and emotional reading practices too. Recognition as a reading practice often co-occur with a feeling of closeness and intimacy with the author, since the readers find their own experiences and conditions in life, confirmed and acknowledged by the author. Most intimate in their appeals are those who ask Lagerlöf for favours, books or money. These letters contain short autobiographies, which often expose highly private matters.

The narration of the letter writers own life stories lends authority from Lagerlöf's own style, and making them novelistic and melodramatic. The letter writers make use of the literary text to understand and confirm their own experiences. Even if Lagerlöf hasn't been regarded as a realistic author, the audience tend to read her works as engaged in a social and political reality. The women's movement, the peace movement and social welfare are important contexts to the letters. Letters from teachers is a large category, and these letters often build on a familiarity coming from the knowledge of Lagerlöf's background as a teacher. Paradoxically, the one aspect of Lagerlöf's author identity that researchers have struggled to challenge - Lagerlöf as the traditional storyteller telling tales of the past - is often invoked and positively charged in the letters.

3. There is no such thing as a "pure" reader reaction manifested in the letters, since the biographical (legend of) Lagerlöf always is somehow involved. "Readings" of the author are in fact more common in the material than readings of her literary work. However, this tendency not to separate work and author also work the other way around: the literary texts influence the view of Selma Lagerlöf as a biographical person. In the letters to the author the work and the author cannot be separated. The project has followed how the image of Lagerlöf evolves in the letters, and it is obvious that several factors interact in creating it: her works, how she appear in other media, her position in the literary establishment, and finally rumours, spread when Lagerlöf for example has answered a letter or helped someone out economically. When a sender writes about the loss of a home, a frequent subject in the letters, explicitly or implicitly the legend of Lagerlöf's own (lost and regained) home Mårbacka is evoked, as is simultaneously the Mårbacka of her works, of her speeches in public and that which was described by the press. The letter writers are always to some extent influenced by what Gerard Génette calls paratexts, that is information about the author that surrounds but does not consist of the literary work. "Reading" in this study, cannot be delimited to the literary text, but must also include it's paratexts, of which the authors biography and media representations are important parts.

Cooperations and potential research questions

In this project, letters to Selma Lagerlöf has been used as a source for investigating the history of reading during 50 years. For a more complete contribution to the history of reading, this collection could be compared to the letters to other authors (in Sweden and abroad), as well as to other kinds of sources, such as records of reading in autobiographical writing. In the English database The Reading Experience Database 1450-1945 (RED) more than 30 000 records of reading are collected and documented and similar projects are starting up in other countries. Responses from the RED Project team show that the Lagerlöf letter collection is of such coverage that it in itself can function as a foundation for a Swedish reading experience database. Material from different countries can thus be compared. During 1890-1940 literature has a nation building function and a comparative study can answer the question on whether this is a general pattern or not.

There is also an interest for the foreign letters to Lagerlöf, since they inform about the reception of her works but also international networks that were involved in matters of peace and the womens' movement. This concerns transnational communities which are focussed by the EU network Women Writers in History, in which this project has been involved. Within the network the letters to Lagerlöf can be put in an international perspective. Are there comparable examples? Is the great interest from the general public to contact the author in some sense linked to women writers?

The letters give the opportunity to study reading in relation to matters of democracy and citizenship, why the project also is a part of the research node "Culture, Democracy and Citizenship" at Uppsala University since 2012.

Since the beginning of the project in 2008, there has been an exchange of knowledge between the project and co-workers of the Selma Lagerlöf Archive, a structure for digitized textcritical edition.


Conferences:
Researching the Reading Experience, Högskolan i Oslo och Akershus, 2013.
Society for the Advancement of Scandinavian Studies, San Fransisco, 2013.
European Female Authoship. Networks and Obstacles (Cost Action) Huygens Instituut, Haag, 2013.
Association of Critical Heritage Studies; University of Gothenburg, 2012.
The National Conference in Literary Studies, Uppsala University (UU), 2012.
Digital Humanities Organization Annual Conference, University of Hamburg: Digital Diversity: Cultures, Languages and Methods, 2012.
Selma Lagerlöf 2011: Text. Translation. Film, University College of London, 2011.
Fält i förvandling. Nationell genuskonferens för litteraturvetare, UU, 2011.
COST Action Women Writers in History, Belgrad, 2011.
Click-On-Knowlege Conference, University of Copenhagen, 2011.
"Imagining Scandinavia", LU och University of Copenagen, 2008.
Society for the History of Authorship, Reading and Publishing Conference, University of Copenhagen, 2008
Evidence of Reading, University College of London, 2008.

Publications

17 articles have been published in Swedish anthologies and journals. During 2014 three more articles, in english, are about to be published. In 2014 our book Läsarnas Lagerlöf (The Readers' Lagerlöf) will be published.

Results have also been spread through different media, exhibitions at for instance the National Library of Sweden, and we have been giving more than 50 talks in Sweden and in other countries.

The most important publication will be the above mentioned study The Readers' Lagerlöf (see above). From the so far published material the following articles are representative examples:
"Den verkliga publikens Selma Lagerlöf" (The Lagerlöf of the real audience") (2011), which investigates letters received until 1910 with a focus on how Lagerlöf's fame developes in the perspective of the letter writers. Why was Lagerlöf so read by the public, why did so many people try to get in touch with her and which were their view of her? Issues of gender and class are discussed adressing the question of why the comparable male author Verner von Heidenstam hardly was contacted by his audience at all.
"Predika utan att predika. Allmänhetens religiösa läsningar av Selma Lagerlöfs författarskap" (Preech but not preeching. The public's religious reading of Lagerlöf's authorship") (2012). The article discusses different religious reading practices and frames of interpretation that is manifested in the letters. By the public, Lagerlöf was regarded to be a christian author although she critizised the church. They see her texts as a substitute for reading the Bible in a secular society, and they state that they read her texts again and again as a source of wisdom and contemplation. This is an example of a pre modern reading practise that is at hand simultaneously as reading for entertainment and consumption.

PUBLIKATIONER:

Jenny Bergenmar och Maria Karlsson, ”Bästa författarinna, Högtärade Dr. Lagerlöf, Kära sagotant! Om allmänhetens läsning av Selma Lagerlöf”, Riksbankens jubileumsfonds årsskrift 2013, red. Björn Fjæstad, Stockholm: Makadam.

Maria Karlsson, ”Kanonforskning, konvergens och kärringromaner”, Fält i förvandling. Genusvetenskaplig litteraturforskning, red. Eva Heggestad, Anna Williams och Ann Öhrberg, Möklinta: Gidlunds 2013, s. 248–263.

Jenny Bergenmar, ”Predika utan att predika. Allmänhetens religiösa läsningar av Selma Lagerlöfs författarskap”, Kyrkohistorisk årsskrift 2012, red. Anders Jarlert, s. 85–103.

Jenny Bergenmar, ”Lärarinnornas Lagerlöf”, Svenskläraren 2012:4, s. 21–23.

Maria Karlsson, ”Den verkliga publikens Selma Lagerlöf”, Spår och speglingar, red. Maria Karlsson och Louise Vinge, Lagerlöfstudier 2011, Möklinta: Gidlunds 2011, s. 185–215.

Jenny Bergenmar, ”Selma Lagerlöf-arkivet och kulturarvet”, Spår och speglingar, red. Maria Karlsson och
Louise Vinge, Lagerlöfstudier 2011, Möklinta: Gidlunds 2011, s. 264-383.

Maria Karlsson och Louise Vinge (red.) Spår och speglingar, Lagerlöfstudier 2011, Möklinta: Gidlunds 2011.

Jenny Bergenmar, ”Replik på repliken”, Tidskrift för litteraturvetenskap 2011:1, s. 88.

Jenny Bergenmar, ”Selma Lagerlöf-arkivet och kulturarvet”, Spår och speglingar, red. Maria Karlsson & Louise Vinge, Möklinta: Gidlunds 2011, s. 364–383.

Jenny Bergenmar, ”Läsningens disciplinering. Om litteratursyn och litteraturundervisning”, Tidskrift för litteraturvetenskap 2010:3-4, s. 17–26.

Jenny, Bergenmar, Selma Lagerlöf, kortprosan och läsarnas kanon”, Tilltal och svar. Studier tillägnade Beata Agrell, red. Jenny Bergenmar, Mats Jansson, Johanna Lundström Gondouin & Mats Malm, Stockholm/Stehag: Symposion 2009, s. 279–289.

Maria Karlsson, ”Läsarnas Lagerlöf: kroppen och känslorna”, En ny sits – humaniora i förvandling. Vänbok till Margaretha Fahlgren, red. Eva Heggestad, Karin Johannisson, m.fl., Skrifter rörande Uppsala universitet. C, Organisation och historia, ISSN 0502-7454; 82, Uppsala 2008, s. 233–242.

Maria Karlsson, ”Allmänheten skriver till Selma Lagerlöf, Selma Lagerlöf 1858–2008, red. Anna Nordlund, s. 105–117, Kungl. Biblioteket: Stockholm 2008, 105–117.
   
Jenny Bergenmar, ”Läsarnas Lagerlöf. 1915 års kvinnor skriver till Selma Lagerlöf”, Moderniteter: Text, bild, kön. En vänbok till Ingrid Holmquist, red. Åsa Arping, Anna Nordenstam & Kajsa Widegren, Stockholm: Makadam 2008, s. 138–152.
   
Jenny Bergenmar, ”Det förstår inte de små gossarna. Selma Lagerlöf och hennes kritiker”, Kritikens dimensioner. Festskrift till Tomas Forser, red. Åsa Arping & Mats Jansson, Stockholm/Stehag: Symposion 2008, s. 115–129.

Maria Karlsson, ”Läsarnas Lagerlöf. 1915 års män skriver till Selma Lagerlöf, De Nio. Litterär kalender 2007. Selma, red. Gunnar Harding, Stockholm: Nordstedts 2007, s. 74–93.

Jenny Bergenmar och Maria Karlsson,  “Läsarnas Lagerlöf”,  Parnass, nr 2:2006, red. Maria Karlsson och Louise Vinge, s. 31–35.

KOMMANDE PUBLIKATIONER 2014

MONOGRAFI: Jenny Bergenmar och Maria Karlsson, Läsarnas Lagerlöf. Allmänheten skriver till Selma Lagerlöf, Möklinta: Gidlunds, ca 380 s. Antagen.

Jenny Bergenmar och Maria Karlsson, ”The Reader in History and Letters to the Author. The Case of Selma Lagerlöf and Her Audience”, Re-Mapping Lagerlöf: Performance, Intermediality and European Transmissions, red. Bjarne Thorup Thomsen, Helena Forsås Scott och Lisbeth Stenberg). Antagen.

Jenny Bergenmar och Maria Karlsson, “Evidence of Reading? The Swedish Public’s Letters to Selma Lagerlöf and Quantitative and Qualitative Approaches to the History of Reading”, Plotting the Reading Experience. Theory, Practise, Politics, ed. Lynne McKechnie, Paulette Rothbauer, Knut Oterholm, Kjell Ivar Skjerdingstad. Antagen.

Jenny Bergenmar, ”Selma Lagerlöf, Fredrika Bremer and Women as Nation Builders”, Women Telling Nations, red. Amelia Sanz (Complutense University, Madrid) och Suzan van Dijk (Huygens Instituut, Haag). Antagen.