{"id":8561,"date":"2020-04-08T00:25:24","date_gmt":"2020-04-08T00:25:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/swedish\/?p=8561"},"modified":"2021-01-13T03:11:38","modified_gmt":"2021-01-13T03:11:38","slug":"learn-edith-sodergran-with-molly-sanden","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/swedish\/learn-edith-sodergran-with-molly-sanden\/","title":{"rendered":"Learn Edith S\u00f6dergran with Molly Sand\u00e9n"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"

Left – Edith S\u00f6dergran, Photo: Wikimedia commons\u00a0 Right: Molly Sand\u00e9n, Photo: Bandsintown.se<\/p><\/div>\n

The first post of each month means it\u2019s time for a music moment! Today I\u2019ll share a song inspired by a poem written by <\/span>finlandsvensk<\/span><\/i> poet Edith S\u00f6dergran. She wrote \u201cVierge moderne\u201d as an anthem to celebrate the coming a modern, independent woman… well as modern as 1916 could get.\u00a0 We\u2019ll read the poem and hear its poppy interpretation by one of the biggest pop stars on the Swedish scene today, Molly Sand\u00e9n.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Edith S\u00f6dergram was born to Swedish-speaking Finnish parents. For the first part of her life, they lived in St. Petersburg where she went to a German-speaking school… talk about multilingual, eh? This spurred S\u00f6dergran to take an interest in international literature; French symbolism, German expressionism, and Russian Futurism, for you literary nerds out there \ud83d\ude09 <\/span>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

She released her first collection of poetry,\u00a0 <\/span>Dikter \/ Poems <\/span><\/i>in 1916 at the age of 24.\u00a0 She received almost no critical acclaim on the Swedish scene and unfortunately her contemporaries pretty much disregarded her completely during her lifetime. S\u00f6dergram died at the age of 31 but was able to publish five collections of poetry before her death in 1923. It was only after her death that she was seen as a trailblazer for modernist Swedish literature. <\/span>In an article for <\/span>The History of Nordic Women\u2019s Literature<\/span><\/a>, Ebba Witt-Brattstr\u00f6m asks, <\/span>
\n<\/span>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cHow do you explain the odd sense of giddiness that you experience when encountering the poetry of Edith S\u00f6dergran? At first you think you are on solid ground, secure in a narrative of love where men are clueless about women\u2019s souls: \u201cTake the longing of my narrow shoulders\u201d […] Before long, however, you\u2019ve been flung into the cosmos: \u201cI walk on sun, I stand on sun, \/ I know nothing but the sun.”<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The poem we\u2019ll look at today is from her first collection of poems and actually has a French title, \u201cVierge moderne \/ Modern Virgin.”<\/span><\/p>\n

Jag \u00e4r ingen kvinna. Jag \u00e4r ett neutrum.<\/span><\/p>\n

Jag \u00e4r ett barn, en page och ett dj\u00e4rvt beslut,<\/span><\/p>\n

jag \u00e4r en skrattande strimma av en scharlakanssol\u2026<\/span><\/p>\n

Jag \u00e4r ett n\u00e4t f\u00f6r alla glupska fiskar,<\/span><\/p>\n

jag \u00e4r en sk\u00e5l f\u00f6r alla kvinnors \u00e4ra,<\/span><\/p>\n

jag \u00e4r ett steg mot slumpen och f\u00f6rd\u00e4rvet,<\/span><\/p>\n

jag \u00e4r ett spr\u00e5ng i friheten och sj\u00e4lvet\u2026<\/span><\/p>\n

Jag \u00e4r blodets viskning i mannens \u00f6ra,<\/span><\/p>\n

jag \u00e4r en sj\u00e4lens frossa, k\u00f6ttets l\u00e4ngtan och f\u00f6rv\u00e4gran,<\/span><\/p>\n

jag \u00e4r en ing\u00e5ngsskylt till nya paradis.<\/span><\/p>\n

Jag \u00e4r en flamma, s\u00f6kande och k\u00e4ck,<\/span><\/p>\n

jag \u00e4r ett vatten, djupt men dristigt upp till kn\u00e4na,<\/span><\/p>\n

jag \u00e4r eld och vatten i \u00e4rligt sammanhang p\u00e5 fria villkor\u2026<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u00a0Ebba Witt-Brattstr\u00f6m notes again that \u201cVierge moderne\u201d,
\n<\/span><\/p>\n


\nidentifies the polarisation between a traditional idea of a woman matched with the narrator’s unwillingness to fill that role. This poem echos a paradox that S\u00f6dergran often touched on; a revolution of the woman\u2019s identity.\u00a0<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Hear Molly Sand\u00e9n\u2019s interpretation this poem with her song “Jag e (Vierge Moderne) here:<\/span><\/p>\n

https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=qb5A5aS25Hs<\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

What did you think of this week’s poem and musical interpretation? Write in the comments below!\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

The English translation of “Vierge moderne” is here:<\/strong><\/span>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

I am no woman. I am a neuter.<\/span><\/p>\n

I am a child, a page and a bold resolve,<\/span><\/p>\n

I am a laughing stripe of a scarlet sun\u2026<\/span><\/p>\n

I am a net for all greedy fish,<\/span><\/p>\n

I am a toast to the glory of all women,<\/span><\/p>\n

I am a step towards hazard and ruin,<\/span><\/p>\n

I am a leap into freedom and self\u2026<\/span><\/p>\n

I am the whisper of blood in the ear of the man,<\/span><\/p>\n

I am the soul\u2019s ague, the longing and refusal of the flesh,<\/span><\/p>\n

I am an entrance sign to new paradises.<\/span><\/p>\n

I am a flame, searching and brazen,<\/span><\/p>\n

I am water, deep but daring up to the knee,<\/span><\/p>\n

I am fire and water in free and loyal union\u2026<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\"\"

The first post of each month means it\u2019s time for a music moment! Today I\u2019ll share a song inspired by a poem written by finlandsvensk poet Edith S\u00f6dergran. She wrote \u201cVierge moderne\u201d as an anthem to celebrate the coming a modern, independent woman… well as modern as 1916 could get.\u00a0 We\u2019ll read the poem and…<\/p>\n

Continue Reading<\/a><\/p>","protected":false},"author":168,"featured_media":8562,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"content-type":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[364862,3269,364869,8239,364872,7791,34680,166,364865],"class_list":["post-8561","post","type-post","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-culture","tag-learn-swedish","tag-music","tag-swedish-culture","tag-swedish-language","tag-swedish-music","tag-swedish-vocabulary","tag-verbs","tag-vocabulary"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/swedish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8561","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/swedish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/swedish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/swedish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/168"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/swedish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8561"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/swedish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8561\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9080,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/swedish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8561\/revisions\/9080"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/swedish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8562"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/swedish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8561"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/swedish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8561"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/swedish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8561"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}