KARLFELDT, ERIK AXEL

born July 20, 1864, Folkrna, Sweden died April 8, 1931, Stockholm Karlfeldt, detail of an oil painting by Carl Larsson, 1918; in Gripsholm Castle, Sweden Swedish poet whose essentially regional, tradition-bound poetry was extremely popular and won him the Nobel Prize for Literature posthumously in 1931; he had refused it in 1918. Karlfeldt's strong ties to the peasant culture of his rural homeland remained a dominant influence on him all his life. He published his most important works in six volumes of verse: Vildmarks-och krleksvisor (1895; Songs of Wilderness and of Love), Fridolins visor (1898; Fridolin's Songs), Fridolins lustgrd (1901; Fridolin's Pleasure Garden), Flora och Pomona (1906), Flora och Bellona (1918), and finally, four years before his death, Hsthorn (1927; The Horn of Autumn). Some of his poems have been published in English translation in Arcadia Borealis: Selected Poems of Erik Axel Karlfeldt (1938). In time, even some of his admirers criticized him for employing his gifts so exclusively in the service of a dying local culture.