Levertin, Oscar Ivar

Born July 17, 1862, in Gryt, near Norrköping; died Sept. 22, 1906, in Stockholm. Swedish writer and literary critic. Son of an antiquarian. Professor of the history of literature at the University of Stockholm from 1899.

Levertin began his literary career in 1883, writing in the naturalist manner. In 1889 he joined the neoromantics, and with K. G. V. von Heidenstam published the programmatic pamphlet The Marriage of Pepita (1890), which was directed against naturalism. The first collection of poems, Legends and Songs (1891), in which Levertin turned to fantastic images of the Middle Ages, was imbued with pessimism, which the author attempted to overcome in the anthologies New Poems (1894) and Poems (1901). The stories in the collection Rococo Stories (1899; Russian translation without publication date) and the novel The Masters in Esteros (1900) were marked by an interest in history. Levertin’s literary-historical works, The Theater Drama Under Gustav III (1889) and From the Time of Gustav III (1896), played a significant role in Swedish literary life of the late 19th and early 20th centuries.