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Beata Agrell

In Search of Legitimacy: Class, Gender and MoralDiscipline in Early Swedish Working-Classliterature c. 1910

This paper deals with certain tensions in early Swedish working-classliterature of the first generation, c. 1910. These texts were a Gebrauch-sliteratura literature for usein the class struggle of the timebut theuse primarily was existential and political reflection, and it was effectedby special (non-acknowledged) aesthetic means that did not conform tothe aesthetics of the current literary institution. This literature was thusmainly considered illegitimate, and the theme of my paper is the tensionbetween what might be called Gebrauchsliteratur and Kunstliteratur inthe modern (post-romantic) era. I will argue that this tension is be-

tween two different aesthetics, which is to say that the conception of aGebrauchsliteratura literature for usepresupposes a certain aestheticand that this aesthetic requires certain non-aesthetic (or non-canonized) kinds of reading in order to be discovered. 1 Only if acceptedin its aesthetic otherness may the peculiar potential of these texts makeitself felt, an otherness both cognitively and normatively unfamiliar.2

The early working-class literature

As for a quick impression of the texts: specific for this first-generation working-class literature is an open, episodic, montage-looking form,focusing on labour, toil, survival and collective struggle for better condi-

Kortadversionpubliceradi Faszinationdes Illegetimen.AlterittinKonstruktionen von

Genealogie, Herkunftund Ursprnglichkeitin denskandinavischen Literaturen seit1800.

Hrsg.ConstanceGestrich&ThomasMohnike.ReiheIdentittenundAlteritten,Band25.

Wrzburg:ErgonVerlag,2007.Ss.103117.

tions. This apparently fragmentary kind of composition was criticizedby leading critics both then and later on.3 The more well-known second-generation working-class literature of the 1930s, on the other hand,rather deals with the individuals Bildung and emancipation from thecollective; and the form chosen mainly is that of the more closed andaesthetically acknowledged Bildungsroman. 4 Several of these latterauthorsmostly menwere admitted into the bourgeois literary estab-lishment, gradually abandoning working-class literature. Quite a fewbecame honorary doctors, some were elected to the Swedish Academy,and two of them finally won the Nobel PrizeHarry Martinson andEyvind Johnson.

The early working-class authors, on the other hand, mostly remainedmanual labourers all of their professional life, and their literary workswere written at night or during periods of unemployment. These bruterealities certainly contributed to the lasting class perspective of their

literary texts. Today, remembered authors of that kind are e.g. MartinKoch, Gustaf Hedenvind Eriksson, and Dan Andersson; they all madetheir dbut about 19101914. Others, like Maria Sandel and Karlstman, are mentioned less often. True, Sandel has been noticed as thefirst woman author of so-called proletarian literature in Sweden, andher work is mentioned as an important documentary sourcebut it isnot accorded any literary value.5 On the contrary, today her work isregarded as antiquated, and even in its own time it was seen as aestheti-cally defective.6 The same kind of sentence is passed on stmantothe extent that his work is commented on at all. In his own days he and

his colleagues also were accused of stridslust i klassagitation [a pug-nacity of class agitation], en omogen stridslust mot det samhlle, somger dem brd [an immature pugnacity against the society that givesthem their bread], and of being fridstrande ogrs [peace-disturbingweed].7 Left-wing critics of the radical 1970s, on the contrary, accusedboth him and Sandel of gradually abandoning their class perspective in


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favour of bourgeois individualism and psychologism in their laterworks8which of course were the ones that other critics liked the best,and for the same reasons.

Thus, when confronted with these authors, critics of opposite campsand different times are offendedpolitically, aesthetically, or both

but the question remains as to what kind of literature this is and how itcan be adequately described from a literary point of view. In its owndays, as literatureit was regarded as illegitimate because of its low work-ing-class origin: a literary career still demanded erudition and an aca-demic education, and new authors without this background wereviewed with suspicion.9 But these were also the years of the beginning ofthe so-called democratization of Parnassus, when a worker could be-come an author while remaining in the position of a worker.10

This change was partly caused by the strength of the growing Labourmovement and its efforts to legitimize itself by bringing bourgeoisknowledge and culture into the broad masses of the working classes while at the same time developing their class consciousness. To thatend, folk high schools were built, and study circles were arranged allover the country; and that is how many working-class authors discov-ered their calling.11

In order to understand what kind of literature this wasand in whatways it was illegitimate literatureit is wise to adopt a historical ap-proach, remembering its function as a literature for use. In order for thatliterariness to appear, this use-aspect must also be observed, that is, the

functional context for which the texts were made.12

The problem: didactics and aesthetics

Maria Sandel and Karl stman, like their generation-mates, wrote in arealistic, often naturalistic tradition with romantic-sentimental or evenmelodramatic and grotesque strainswell-known patterns of the

1800s.13 But they also wrote in a didactic tradition with progenitors fromboth pre-modern pragmatic aesthetics, religious revivalism, and politicalagitation literature. This didacticism was contrary to the modern aes-thetics of literary autonomy, maintained by the post-symbolist avant-garde and the so-called decadents. In fact, it was contrary to the moraldidacticism of leading critics of the time as well,14 since it was associatedwith the working classes and thus threatening.15 This other didacticismcould be both moral and practical: in Sandel the reader is confrontedwith illustrative moral examplesboth good and badas well as withdetailed description of broken family life in the urban wilderness, andpoor cooking in miserable working-class kitchens. In stman we meetlucid cases of workers attitudes toward the authorities and toward eachother at the work-place, as well as instructive descriptions of the differ-ent steps of the working process.

The working-class authors wanted to reach a public, primarily their

own class-mates, but in the long run also readers from the middleclass.16 At this timeabout 1910the Labour movement had developedan ffentlichkeitof its own, with newspapers and even publishing com-panies.17 Yet most working-class literature was edited by bourgeois pub-lishing companies18 presumably as a bonus effect of the current literarytrend of bourgeois realism.19 The broadening public, however, also cre-ated problems, since it compelled the working-class author to speakwith two voices.20 The ambition of working-class literature was to influ-ence, to change opinions and attitudes: to teach, to moveand to awaken.But the actual readers often preferred to be pleased; they wanted enter-

tainment, excitement, and beauty; they did not want reminders of mis-ery, either their own or others.21 This is an attitude that stman oftennotes, not least among his own class-mates.22 So the problem is: howcould didactics and aesthetics be combined in the same text? In otherwords, how could a Gebrauchsliteratur become a Kunstliteraturwithoutlosing its usefulness?


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The didactic aim here is pulling towards pragmatic aesthetics, while theartistic aim is pulling towards literary experimentation in fulfilling thispragmatism. But these allegedly opposite tendencies also support eachother. The working-class authors of the day wrote in all genres and me-dia; they used Kunstliteratur as a Gebrauchliterarische means, so tospeak,23 yet this Gebrauchsliteraturwas serving an otherdidacticism thanthat of the debate article, the pamphlet, and the piece of agitation lit-erature. It is a literarydidacticism based on narrat ive, fiction, and vividdepiction although without the kind of literariness that is fostered ina modern literary institution; it is unfamiliar with the disinterestedbeholding which, with Kant, became fundamental in modern aesthet-ics.24 What does thisfunctionalaesthetic consist of?

Let us have a look at some examplesmainly chosen from Maria San-del.

Maria Sandel an example

Maria Sandel was a seamstressa tricot knitteress ( trikstickerska)living in the poor working-class quarters of Kungsholmen in Stockholm.This was also the environment she depicted as an author.25

Meditative reading (Min gata)

Sandels first short-story collection Vid Svltgrnsen [At the hunger line]was published in 1908, that is, in the span of time between the greatgeneral strikes of 1902 and 1909. All the stories deal with different as-pects of everyday life in the poorest working-class quarters of Stock-holm. In the story Min gata [My street] the narrative frame is a wan-dering along the proletarians street. But the real wanderer in fact is thereader, guided by the didactic narrator. Do you see? she incessantlyurges; Watch here! Look there! Consider this! When, in theafternoon, the workers on their way home from the factory are focused,the narrator grows eager, appealing, didacticaiming at arousing the

readers engagement, of course, but still more his or her meditation andreflection.

Mensepdegamlamnnen,deldrigakvinnorna!O,degamla,somfyratio,femtior

gjortevigtsammagreppmedhanden,haftevigtsammaljudfrratochfrgatsam-

masyn!Sepdegamla,somldratsioupphrlig,tacklskampfrettknapptbrdt

sigochdesina,frhvilkaalltilifvetblifvitvana,alltutomdet,somgrtillvarondrglig.

Sepderaskrktaryggarochstultandegngochtnkphurdetskallknnasatthfva

envrkbruten,illahviladkroppurbddeniarlamorgon!Tnkpdelngatimmarnaafjkt, (94:) bekymmeroch fattighuseti perspektiv svida ejdden frbarmarsig.

Tnk!ochduskallvndasafmedlidandeTydegamlahaintethopp.Deungakunna

ochskolastridasigtillljusarevillkor,oftaskoladestupafrattresasignstarkare.

Mendegamladekunnabarasegnaned(93f.)

[Butlookattheoldmen,theagedwomen!Oh,theaged,forforty,fiftyyearseternally

doingthesameoperationwiththeirhands,eternallyhavingthesamesoundintheir

ears,andtheireyeseternallythesamesight!Lookattheaged,havinggrownoldin

perpetual thanklessstruggle for scarce bread for themselves andtheir people, for

whomeverythinginlifehasbecomehabit,exceptforthatwhichmakesexistencetoler-

able.Lookattheirbentbacksandstiffgait,andconsiderwhatitwouldbeliketoheave

upanaching,badlyrestedbodyfromthebedearlyinthemorning!Considerthelong

hoursofrushing,worry,and thepoorhouse inperspectiveunlessdeath takespity.

Consider!andyou shallsufferagonywith compassion.For theagedhave nohope.Theyoungcanandshouldstruggletheirwaytobrighterconditions,andoftentheywill

fallinordertorisestillstronger.Buttheagedcouldonlysinkdown...]

The many expressions of here and now assume a deictic function thatlends the narrative the character of an ongoing course of events, takingplace in the readers face. This is a common technique in ancient liter-ary tradition, deriving its origin from meditative Christian devotionalliterature.26 What should be meditated on could be any mundane thing,but the process should lead to andelige och himmelske ting [spiritualand heavenly things], often Christ in his vicarious suffering. 27 As de-picted through these meditative literary techniques, the working class inSandel, in fact, acquires a Christ-like role. This becomes still more evi-dent when the very physical work is depictedas for instance instman. 28

This meditative way of reading from the tradition of devotional litera-ture was inherited and further developed by the Religious Revival


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Movementthe so-called lsarna [readers]and from there it gotinto the Labour movement and the other secular popular movements.As is shown by previous research, this meditative reading was intenseand personal: the readersgmde det lsta i sitt hjrta [kept what was readin their hearts], as the phrase was, bringing it to bear on their own per-sonal situations.29

In Sandel, on the one hand, disparate scenes are lined up togetherimpressionistically depicted in a form of composition opposing currentconventions of a well-made story. On the other hand, these scenes arekept together through various formal devices. Most important is thenarrator, guiding the reader through a manifold world, populated by all working-class layers. This is presented as an unfamiliar world, beingmade familiar only in the course of the wandering: the multiplicityof thestreet mirroring thefullnessof the class. The scenes are woven togetherinto a network where a solidarity theme is developeda theme bearing

witness to the unityof the apparently disparate class.

Compositional offense (Familjen Vinge)

Sandels first novel, Familjen Vinge och deras grannar[The Vinge familyand their neighbours], was published in 1909 as a serial in the Labourmovements own newspaper, Social-Demokraten. It has on the whole thesame open composition as Min gata. The scenes change between dif-ferent settings, and the sub-title of the novel emphasizes the multi-plicity and the wide perspective: En bok om verkstadsgossar och fabriks-flickor [A book about engine fitter boys and factory girls]. The story

lines are many, and there is no unified plot. The text instead is kepttogether by the problems that are depicted in the disparate scenes: thedangers of factory work, unemployment, poverty, strikes, tuberculosis,housing shortage, restrictions of space, alcoholism, maltreatment,criminality, prostitution, venereal diseases, single mothers, and evenpaedophilia.

These problems are depicted from the point of view of the womanworker, and her world is the centre of attention. The linchpins of thisworld are the family and home, and the struggle of keeping the hometogether is most often the womans lonely task. But the womans life islived outside the home just as much: in the factory for hats or choco-late, and in all the foreign stairwells to be scrubbed. This classic dualrole is not questioned in Sandel. What is questioned instead is the mo-ral disorder deriving from factory work in those days, equally affecting women and men.30 Sandels strong moral passion produces the typicalcrossing of her texts between pathetics, melodrama, and extreme natu-ralism. But her moralism is given expression in different and contradic-tory voicesa peculiarity also noted in the scanty research on Sandel. 31

Within the Labour movement, questions of morality were high in rankon the agenda in those days, not least within the party press. They wereactualized not least by the struggle against so-called smutslitteratur[dirty

literature]in 1909 still ongoing.32

The struggle concerned not onlybad taste and lack of education, but also moral disorder and depravityin general. The social democrats were anxious to step forward on theside of education and morals, since in bourgeois circles crudity and im-morality were often associated with the working classes. Thus it wasimportant to change that impression, and the effect was a far-reachingmoral rearmament within the Labour movement itself. As has beenmade clear by earlier research, the idea ofden sktsamme arbetaren [theconscientious worker], and the insistence on inner discipline, have thusdeveloped as a part of the class struggle itself.33

In Sandels Familjen Vingethe final chapter is of special interest in thiscontext, because the tension between didactics and aesthetics is carriedto extremes. The heading of the chapter is Som icke har ngon rubrik[Which has no heading], giving the novel a sombre and yet quite openending: an eight-year-old girl is found raped in her own bed. The penul-timate chapter Morsan fr en dotter [Mum is getting a daughter], on


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the contrary, offers a round-off more suitable to traditional novelisticexpectations: Mrs Vinges daughter has died of tuberculosis, but MrsVinge instead takes care of another young woman, an abandonedmother, thereby getting even a grandchild (however illegitimate). Onemight ask why Sandel chose to refrain from the possibility of a conven-tional ending of her novel. True, Sandel always writes episodically, of-ten also using open endings. But this final chapter is special.

Initially the problem of cramped housing accommodation is treated,but the chapter ends in this paedophile rape: a lodger forces himself onthe eight-year-old Vera, daughter of the family. The reader is not sparedmany details. The naturalism here is unexpectedly far-reaching, evenconsidering that the serial was published in the Labour movementsown newspaper. At first we meet the impatiently waiting perpetratorLarssonas if from the inside of his own yearning body, wriggling in hisimprovised bed:

Stolarna,p vilkasofflocketvar lagt,knakadeunderbrdanav entung kropp, som,brinnandeavondalustar,rolstvltradesig.Kolenigallrethadelngesedanslocknat,

men,tndaavtr,gnistradenuettpargonimrkret,riktadesoupphrligtmotlillaVerasbddLarssons gon. n av frossbrytningar ristes hansmuskulsakropp, n

kndehan detsom omflammorslickathans ktt. Morrandelten sttte ut genom

sammanbitnatnderhansgdenlillabarnkroppenmedsininreblick,snvit,spenslig,

hantycktesigknnadessdoftMedettryckkomhanisittandestllning,hanslppar

flktesuppverkkarna,pannhudendrogsihoptillvalkarhanlyssnade.

DjupasnarkningarfrnsngenIngenfaraallts.Medett lystetsprngrLarssonur

sinbdd.(317f.)

[Thechairs,ontopofwhichtheseatofthesofawasplaced,werecreakingunderthe

burdenofaheavybody,restlesslyrolling,burningfromevillust.Thecoalofthefire-

guardlongagohadgoneout,butnowapairofeyes,lightenedbylust,weresparkling

inthedark,incessantlyturningtowardslittleVerasbedLarssonseyes.Nowhismus-cularbodywasshiveringfromfitofague,nowhefeltasthoughflameswerelickinghisflesh.Growlingsoundswereutteredthroughhiscompressedteethhesawthechilds

littlebodyinhismindseye,snow-white,delicate,hefancieditsscentWithastarthe

gotintoasittingposture,hislipssplitopenoverhisjaws,theskinofhisforeheadcon-

tractedintocalluseshewaslistening.

DeepsnoringsfromthebedThus,nofear.Withacovetousleap,Larssonisoutofhis

bed.]

Then a significant blank, and suddenly the victim is exhibitedas thetorn prey of a wild beast:

Sklvandeligger lillaVerabland de upprivna sngklderna. Henneslinner i trasor,

kroppenblodig.Med enahandenplockarhonbland flikarna,somvillehon skylasig,

denandraliggerslappochorrligverbrstet,denrbrutenileden.Bldandespref-

tertnderharhonikinden.Utanattigenknnafarochmorstirrarhonpdemmed

ddsskrmsel i gonen,medan henneslppar,med korta, hickande uppehll,forma

ideligt,ideligtsammastavelse:pa-pa-paMenhonkanickeframbringaettljud.Honrstum.(320)

[ShiveringlittleVera islyingamongthe rummagedbedclothes.Her camisoletornto

rags,her body bloodstained. Her one hand pottering about the patches, asif she

wantedtocoverherself,theotheronelyinglimpandimmobileoverherchest,thejoint

fractured.Bleedingtracesofteethonhercheek.Withoutrecognizingherfatherand

mother she stares atthem,fearofdeathinhereyes,herlips withshorthiccuping

pauses,continuallyformingthesamesyllable:pa-pa-paButshecannotbringfortha

sound.

Sheisdumb.]

With these words the book ends: SLUT [The End] is written in bigcapitals. Thus, silence and dumbness end a chapter telling us about the

missing of the heading, while simultaneously having a heading as notedabove. This is like a variant of the ancient liars paradox. So what is thesense of it?

The same question was evidently posed by the chief editor K.O. Bon-nier when the book edition was actualized in 1913. He accepted themanuscript on the condition that the text was given a better concen-tration, at the same time wondering om icke ett och annat uttryck rfr hrdt och partifrgat [if a thing or two were not too harsh andparty-coloured]); that is, the tone should be subdued.34 This led toSandels extensive cutting, even though the recently quoted passages ofthe paedophile chapter were left intact. But she did reverse the orderbetween the last two chapters: the rape is inserted before the precedingMorsan fr en dotter [Mother gets a daughter].In this way the narra-tive acquires a conventional rounded-off ending, which takes the stingout of the disquieting paedophile chapter. In addition, it is fitted with aconventional heading, now reading Stjrnblomstrets de [The Fate of


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Notes1See Gebrauchsliteratur in von Wilpert, Sachwrterbuch der Literatur,p. 329 .

2See the distinction des kognitiv Fremden/ des normativ Fremden in Mecklenburg,

ber kulturelle und poetische Alteritt, p. 81.

3 See e.g. Koch, Martin in Svenskt litteraturlexikon, p. 255, and Fahlgren, Littera-turkritiker, pp. 72, 74.4

See Thorsell, Den svenska parnassens demokratisering, p. 523.5

See e.g. negative reviews of the new edition of Virveln (1913) in 1975: Engstrm,En omotiverad terutgivning in Sknska Dagbladet, 24 Apr. 1975, and Halldn,Maria Sandels omsorg om sanningen, in Dagens Nyheter, 12 Mai 1975. See alsoArrbck Falk, Maria Sandel, p. 3704, and Witt-Brattstrm in her Efterord to thenew edition ofVirveln, p. 269.6

Even the social democrat Erik Hedn in his review of Virveln in Social-Demokraten, 17 Dec. 1913, feels prompted to defend its loose composition. A typi-cal bourgeois reaction is Rosa Heckschers consistently negative review of SandelsHexdansen (1919) in Svensk tidskrift1920. But cf. Hedns opposite evaluation of

the same qualities in Social-Demokraten, 16 Dec. 1919.7Sign. Eron, review of stmans Pilgrimer.

8For stman see Falk et al., Karl stman, p. 227. For Sandel, see Arrbck Falk,

Maria Sandel, pp. 3674, 3704.9

See Albert Vikstenhimself a working-class authorquoted in Grdegrd, Efter-skrift, in stmans Stabblggare, pp. 225f.10

See Thorsell, Parnassen, p. 521.11

Thorsell, Parnassen, p. 525. See also the biographies in Furuland, Folkhg-skolan.12

See Jauss, Horizon Structure, on the necessary interaction between the old andfamiliar and the new and the other, p. 203.13

See also Berger, Karnevaliska element i Maria Sandels texter, on Bakhtiniancarnivalistic devices in Sandel.14

This moralizing is evident in the leading critic of the time, Fredrik Bk. See T.Forser, Bks trettiotal, pp. 13, 15.15

For the threatening working-classes, see Bothius, Nick Carter, pp. 119, 158,222f., 251, and Godin, Klassmedvetandet, pp. 118f., 130132.16

Godin, Klassmedvetandet, pp. 136f., Olsson, Proletrfrfattaren, pp. 58, 69f.

17E.g. Socialdemokratiska Arbetarepartiets bok- och broschyrfrlag (1889), Brands

frlag (1897), Frams frlag (1903), Framtidens frlag (1908), and from 1912 alsoTidens frlag. As for a Swedish proletarian ffentlichkeit, see Furuland, Litteraturoch samhlle, pp. 2124.18

See Svedjedal in Furuland & Svedjedal, Svensk arbetarlitteratur, p. 440; also 443,444f.

19 See e.g. Olof Rabenius commenting on moderna svenska samhllsskildringar[modern Swedish depictions of society] in his overview Svenska romaner ochnoveller, Ord&Bild1912, p. 232.20

See Olsson, Proletrfrfattaren, pp. 69f., analysing this double authorial positionin stman.21

See Fahlgren, Litteraturkritiker, p. 73.22

Cf. the narrators defense in stmans short story Kapar-Karlsson, p. 44. For ananalysis, see Agrell, Gmma det lsta , pp. 74f.23

Cf. Bothius, Nick Carter, p. 265, on Hjalmar Brantings wiew of culture.24

See Eysteinsson, Modernism, p. 125. Cf. also Hansson, Frn Hercules till Swea,p. 11, on the modern Kantian aesthetics breaking into the classical rhetorical system

of literature in Sweden.25For informative analytic overviews on Sandel, see Forselius, Moralismens heta

blod , and Godin, Klassmedvetandet, pp. 123139.26

See Hunter, Before Novels, pp. 202f., Hansson, Ett sprk fr sjlen, pp. 133141,147f.; also Thorn, I Zions tempel, e.g. pp. 84f. on C.M. Bellmans Christian medita-tive poetry.27

Hansson, Ett sprk fr sjlen, pp. 137f.28

See Agrell, Gmma det lsta, on stmans depiction of a working-site acci-dent.29

See Ambjrnsson, Den sktsamme arbetaren, p. 129, and Furuland, Konsten attlsa, p. 13. Cf. also Godin, Klassmedvetandet, p. 135, on patterns of devotionalconversion-stories structuring Sandels narrative.

30 For demoralizing factory work, see Bothius, Nick Carter, pp. 118, 234f, 240, andGodin, Klassmedvetandet, pp. 134f. Cf. Sandels narrator in Virveln, p. 20.31

Forselius, Sjlsadeln och de ystra sinnenas rop, pp. 32, 3840, 48.32

For the course of events, see Bothius, Nick Carter, pp. 131133, and chapter V.33

Ambjrnsson, Den sktsamme arbetaren, pp. 261f., and J. Frykman & O. Lfgren,Den kultiverade mnniskan (1979), p. 34, Horgby, Egensinne och sktsamhet, pp.


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43f., 67f., 272f., 361f., Bothius, Nick Carter, pp. 260f., 262264, 270, 276. AlsoAgrell, Modernitet, sekularisering och heliga vrden, pp. 183f.34

Svedjedal, Bokens samhlle, p. 295.35

Barthes, S/Z, pp. 4f.36

See Shklovski, Art as Device, commented on in Eysteinsson, Modernism pp.45f., 199.37

See Eysteinsson, Modernism, pp. 41, 44f., and Johnson, An Aesthetics of Nega-tivity.38

Lagerkvist, Ordkonst och bildkonst, p. 42.39

See e.g. Rnnholm and Skyum-Nielsen in Litteraturen r fdd skyldig, a conver-sation on contemporary Nordic literature, in Ord & Bild2000:45.40

See Tihanov, The Politics of Estrangement, p. 688. Cf. Brechts Lehrstcke, hisHauspostille, and his Kriegs-Fibel; see the analysis in e.g. Evans, Brechts War-Primer, and Agrell, Documentarism, pp. 5052.41

See Jauss, The Identity of the Poetic Text, pp. 20, 23, on transformation of hori-zon and reconstructing the pre-judgments of the original addressee.

agrell_illegitimity working-class

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