The Life and Works of Carl Michael Bellman.  A Short Biography.

Few if any Swedish poets have received such praise as that showered on Carl Michael Bellman.  As early as 1836, he was honored by the Swedish author, Esaias Tegnér before the Swedish Academy at their 50th Anniversary celebration as ”the greatest picture of song from the Nordic lands.”  The word ”picture” (Sw. ”bild,” meaning ”Gestalt”) was also borrowed from Bellman’s usage.
But there has been controversy about him as well.  He has been represented as a spokesman for drunkenness and immoral behavior, and literary scholars have fought like cats and dogs over the meaning of obscure expressions in his verses.  Notwithstanding the arguments, Bellman, of the hundreds of ”dead poets”, seems to be uniquely alive today.

These are not the times in which we denote literary figures as ”national” poets, but Carl Michael Bellman would be, and for a long time in Sweden has already been, considered such a one.
His popularity spread at a very early point to neighboring countries—Denmark and Finland—but more recently his poetry has won him admirers in the rest of the North, in Germany, Russia and more distant countries as well.  Translations of his songs have brought his fame to an increasingly wide public.

The following essay about Bellman is meant to give a very short introduction to his life and works, hopefully inspiring the readers to deepen their understanding by reading more comprehensive studies.
There are two important biographies about Carl Michael Bellman:  Paul Britten Austin’s Carl Michael Bellman.  Genius of the Swedish Rococo (Malmö 1967) (a Swedish translation by Gun and Nils A. Bengtsson is also available), and Lars Huldéns Carl Michael Bellman (Swedish only at this time, Stockholm 1994).  A good recent study of Bellman’s poetry is Lars Lönnroth’s Ljuva karneval! Om Carl Michael Bellmans diktning (Stockholm, 2005, also in Swedish).
In our menu Suggested reading (länk) you can find recommendations for essential books and articles about our poet and the time in which he lived.

This short biography has been written especially for the website of the Bellman Society, and is based primarily on Lars Huldén’s above-mentioned biography.  For those wishing to use excerpts from this text, the following credit identification should be used:  Huldén, Lars & Nell, Jennie, ”Carl Michael Bellmans liv och verk.  En minibiografi,” www.bellman.org/biografi

Family

The Bellman family was established in Stockholm when a tailor, Martin Casten Bellman, immigrated around 1660 from the Bremen area, now Northern Germany, but during the time of Swedens ”Age of Greatness,” it was a Swedish province.
He married Barbara Klein, the daughter of a German tailor as well.  They had nine children, and one of them, Johan Arndt Bellman (1663-1709) became professor of Latin rhetoric at the University of Uppsala, also serving as Dean and as Chancellor of the University.  He was musically gifted, and played the small cittern (a kind of lute-guitar hybrid) that may be seen today at the Stockholm City Museum (Stockholms stadsmuseum); it was inherited by his grandson, Carl Michael, who played it as well.  Johan Arndt had purportedly bought the instrument in Rome during an educational journey he had made around Europe as a tutor for a wealthy family, before he became professor.
                      Johan Arndt Bellman married into another German family, that of Assessor Dauer, taking Katarina Elisabet Daurer as his wife (1687-1709).  The couple had three children, their youngest, also named Johan Arndt (1707-1765), was to become the father of Carl Michael Bellman.  A brother Martin (our poet’s uncle) moved to Spain, where he married into a wealthy family and served as the Swedish consul in Cadiz.  The three children lost both their parents in 1709, and took care of their maternal grandparents after that.  Assessor Dauer’s widow lived until 1743.  She became Carl Michael Bellman’s godmother, and it was in her house on Hornsgatan that the poet was born.
                      Bellman’s father, Johan Arndt (junior), was a government bureaucrat who advanced slowly—much too slowly, according to his own view–to end as a secretary in the royal chancellery.  He was well educated, and had spent spent several years in Germany.  So German had to have been spoken well in the family circle.  He married Katarina Hermonia (1717-1765), the daughter of the minister of the Maria Parish, Michael Hermonius (1680-1749) from the Dalarna province, and his wife Kristina Arosell (ca. 1689-1752), from Västerås.
Bellman’s parents had many children.  In his short autobiography, Carl Michael remembered 21 childbirths, which is probably an exaggeration; but fifteen are registered.  Carl Michael was the oldest.  Seven of his brothers and sisters also survived their parents.
                      The family had a few aristocratic acquaintances, but largely hobnobbed with members of the burgher class.  Names which figure in Bellman’s circle from an early point are C.A.Rosenadler, Hedvig Charlotta Nordenflycht, Anders Lissander and Abraham Sahlstedt.  Bellman also refers to ”the great (Olof von) Dalin” as a mentor.  According to Bellman himself, Rosenadler helped him to be selected as an ”ämnessven” (something like an intern) in the Academy of Science.  His name, however, does not appear in the Academy’s list of interns.
On the other hand, a number of younger Swedish poets who later gained considerable recognition nationally—Samuel Tilas, Olof Kexél and Johan Gabriel Oxenstierna—were included in Bellman’s circle of friends.

Education
Carl Michael Bellman (February 4, 1740—February 11, 1795) had an attentive and expensive education.  He started as a private pupil at the Maria School near his home, but from 1754 his parents engaged a private tutor, Claes Ludvig Ennes (1727—1791), a graduate student from southern Sweden who had completed his Master’s degree in Lund in 1751.  Ennes ended as a parish minister in the southern province of Skåne, presumably with the help of a recommendation by Bellman.  Carl Michael received extensive training in languages (German, French, English, Italian, Latin), and in the necessary tools for their use:  rhetoric, emblematics, psalm and other spiritual poetic composition, music, and general theory of poetry.  It is probable that Bellman’s father had great ambitions for his eldest son, perhaps fashioned after the success Johan Arndt senior had had a generation before.  Bellman’s brothers and sisters were by no means given the same quality education; the resources in the Bellman family were not great enough to allow this.
                      Under the mentorship of Ennes, Bellman produced rather advanced translation exercises, such as the Evangelical Thoughts of Mortality from the German of David von Schweidnitz with the sonnets included, and the Moral Instruction by a Father for his Son before a Long Journey, from the French of Philippe Sylvestre du Four.  Both of these youthful works were published in 1757.  In 1758 a lengthy original poem by the teenaged Bellman, ”Tankar om flickors ostadighet” (Thoughts on the Unreliability of Young Women) appeared in print anonymously.  The political satire called ”Månan” (The Moon), which was published in 1760, revealed Bellman’s talent more clearly:  in 67 8-line verses, Bellman supplies commentary on the various events of the day, from the war in Pommerania to a sighting of Haley’s Comet and a pietist sect.  For readers of our time, trying to figure out Bellman’s references in this work is difficult.  Bellman had to mask his commentaries in the form of a dream—on the moon, no less—to avoid censorship problems with the authorities.  The tactic had been used by previous authors to avoid bearing the responsibility for the controversial content of their political poetry.  But as time went on, most of Bellman’s poetry simply avoided politics and social criticism altogether.

Public Career
On November 3, 1758, Bellman registered as a Stockholmer at the University of Uppsala.  He had already been accepted, on probation, for a position at the National Bank.  He returned to this bank position in June of 1759 as an unpaid accountant.  His university studies must have been quite superficial.  They are reflected obliquely, however, in the later Fredman’s Song 28, ”Movitz skulle bli student” (Movitz on his way to study):

Movitz skulle bli Student;                                         Movitz was to college sent;
Han Upsala betrakta,                                                  Eyed Uppsala’s glamour,
Börja mumla excellent                                                 Started mumbling, excellent,
Grammatica contracta;                                                (The shorter) Latin Grammar
Dum och tjock,                                                          Dumb as a rock,
Hic haec hoc                                                                Hic—haec—hoc
Han sig genast lärde;                                                 He was conjugating;
Hyrde sig en svarter rock,                                         Rented garb he saw in stock,
Kyronii öl förtärde.                                                     Found beer elevating. 

During the trips back and forth from Uppsala, Bellman saw the Rotebro Inn, where he may have gotten impressions he later used in the play ”Mantalsskrifningen” (The Tax-Census).  The crowd of taverrn guests and travelers, the local people with their Uppland dialect, perhaps even the snow storm in the play could have been a memory from long ago for Bellman, or so one might speculate.
                      Bellman’s banking experience lasted for four years.  These were years filled, however, with much more than office work.  Bellman was attracted to the night life in the capitol city, with a carneval atmosphere and mascarade balls.  And here Bellman’s own talent as a songwriter was discovered in his closest circle of acquaintences.
                      But the life style was expensive, and it became disastrously so when when the partying young people got themselves into debt, when their own capital resources ran out.  In the spring of 1763 Bellman was declared bankrupt.  It ended his short career at the bank.  According to one calculation, Bellman’s personal debts in 1763 were equivalent to about twenty years of wages for a lower level functionary such as he.  The bankruptcy had dire consequences for the whole Bellman family, and there was an immanent risk that he would be put in debtor’s prison along with many others.  One way to avoid arrest was to flee the country entirely—the route to Norway was known for this purpose—and to negociate terms for one’s return, with the right to stay clear of the authorities and creditors, while an appropriate settlement could be arranged.  In Bellman’s case, there was an extra complication:  the Secretary of the Castle Chancellery was the authority who was to take up such initial negociations.  This person was Bellman’s own father.  Johan Arndt Bellman lost his own position, and the family house on Hornsgatan, which had loans against it as well, had to be sold.  Bellman’s mother and father were allowed to occupy a manor house in the countryside some 30 miles from the city.  The manorhouse was in bad shape as well, and by this time the family had no money to make repairs.  Both of Bellman’s parents died in 1765.
                      But did Bellman actually flee to Norway?  To be sure, a safe-conduct letter was forthcoming from the Mayor Larsen at Fredrikshald (on the border), in which a person identified as ”Carl Jansen Bellman” had applied to the mayor.  No identity papers had been presented.  Bellman had also been restricted from travel from August 1763, so a passport was out of the question.  In later letters and poetry Bellman has nothing to say about a trip to Norway, and some have questioned whether the trip actually took place.  The bankruptcy itself, however, was a traumatic experience, and it can have had a strong effect on his life and poetry.
                      After spending some time with his parents far (by those days’ terms) from the capitol city, Anders Lissander, who was both a family friend and the head of the Government Office of Manufacturing, arranged for a job for Bellman.  This office was closed a couple of years later, but Bellman moved to the General Customs Office.  When the latter was closed as well, Bellman retained his small salary.
Bellman’s last official post in the government bureaucracy was his nomination as Secretary of the National Lottery in 1776.  This was an institution that had been created in 1773 by King Gustavus III.  The wages were not bad in this case, but Bellman is said to have used it as a sinecure, hiring out the position to someone else to do the work, for which half the salary was paid.  Bellman retained this position the rest of his life.  He could also claim the title of ”Royal Court-Secretary,”  which gave him access to one or another of the private salons of the highest classes.  From 1771 he engaged a bit in the political structure in Stockholm, with an appointment as a notary in the Farmer’s Estate.

Private Life
Bellman could not be said to be the perfect son-in-law type.  Certainly word of his bankruptcy was spread, and his continued difficulties with money matters, combined with his reputation as an entertainer inspired little confidence among the families that had marriageable daughters.  As he says himself in his autobiographical observations, albeit with typical irony: ”Jag ser en Kärleks-Gudinna i hvar loppa och en Astrild i hvar utkastad nedandel” (”I see a love-goddess in every flea and a Cupid in every discarded skirt”).
Time passed, and Bellman was 37 years old before there could be any question of an orderly family life.  And then it was doubtless the resolute attitude of the 22-year-old Lovisa Grönlund that brought about the decision to marry.  The banns were posted in Eds Parish, where she had been living for a time; it is not certain that her parents were notified about the impending marriage.  On the 19th of December, 1777, Carl Michael and Lovisa were wed in the sacristy of Klara Church.  On Christmas Eve, the bride’s father rushed a marriage settlement to the authorities—a protective device to secure at least Lovisa’s dowry.  Bellman’s own family plans could be linked to his recent appointment as Secretary of the Number Lottery; his status had also been raised by his title of Royal Court-Secretary.
                      When Bellman became a family man with children, he made attempts to improve his civic reputation.  He produced his most comprehensive single work, Bacchi Tempel (The Temple of Bacchus) in 1787, but it hardly changed his reputation as an author.  He published religious poetry (1781 and 1787).  The great Epistle poems lay mostly untouched, although a he made few renewed efforts to have them printed.  Meanwhile, the family’s economy remained weak.
                      Carl Michael and Lovisa Bellman had four children:  Gustav in 1781, Elis in 1785, Karl in 1787 and finally Adolf in 1790.  Elis died already in 1787, when Karl was only months old.  It was at this time that the famous cradle song, ”Lillle Charles sov sött i frid” (”Little Charles, sleep well in peace”) was conceived, for Karl on the 8th of August 1787.  It is still sung today, in a kind of folksong variant.  Gustav enlisted in the dragoons at the age of 14; he left Sweden, and fell in the Napoleonic war.  Karl became a sailor, and disappeared from the records.  It was the youngest of the children, Adolf, who stayed in Stockholm.  He became a silk merchant.  He married, but had no children.  He did not live to be very old:  at the end of his life, he had mental difficulties, and was institutionalized in the town district of Djurgården in Stockholm, where he was drowned in 1834.  He was, however, musically gifted, and took part in the newly formed Bellmanska sällskapet (Society for Bellman; not to be confused with our Bellmanssällskapet).  Some interesting annotations regarding his father have been preserved, but he never achieved an early intention to complete a biography of Carl Michael Bellman.
                      Bellman’s marriage to Lovisa lasted 18 years. She outlived the poet no less than 52 years.  The Swedish Romantic poet P.D.A. Atterbom and other admirers of Bellman visited her in her old age, and were duly impressed by her. She was not, however, particularly open about her own life nor that of her husband.  A pension from (among other sources) the brotherhood Par Bricole provided her with some financial security until her death in 1847.

Youthful Poetry
The poetry Bellman wrote as a young man during the 1760’s fills two volumes in the Standard Edition, or a total of about 300 poems. These are mostly drinking songs, or table songs designed for happy, usually alcohol-inspired gatherings. There are several subdivisions in this group. Some are impersonations of various roles, such as ”De fyra ståndens sätt att fria” (Marriage Proposals as seen in the Four Estates), and the song about ”Gamla Annika från fattighuset” (Old Annika from the Poor House). One can imagine that Belllman himself played these different roles. Another group of songs has the God of Wine, Bacchus, as a central figure in different roles or professions. He is seen as a beggar, a suitor, a lawyer, a barrelmaker, etc.
                      An important suite of songs from this period, however, presents figures from the Old Testament. We may find Adam, Eve, Cain and Abel, Abraham, Sarah, Noah, Judith, Joachim in Babylon and others. This group of songs particularly irritated the Church fathers on account of their uninhibited portrayal of known figures from the Bible. But Bellman was simply carrying on an old tradition of songs and parodies that had been around for centuries in Europe, especially in Germany and France, and the only particular difference one sees is that Bellman’s are generally more cleverly constructed. It has been assumed that the Bible tradition upon which Bellman built this part of his oeuvre was based on wedding entertainments, and that Bellman’s songs also functioned in this way. A bridegroom named Joseph could easily become the butt of a joke about his Biblical namesake (Genesis 39).  Noah was a less common given name, but as the first figure in the Bible who is reported as being drunk (Genesis 9), he merited attention in a merry entertainment. The patriarchs of the Old Testament are brought ”down to earth” in Bellman’s poetry to a level that all could relate to. ”Old Man Noah” in Bellman’s formulation was circulated as a broadside ballad and became so popular (it is still well known in Sweden today) that Lund’s Cathedral Chapter responded angrily, requesting that these sacreligious pieces be collected and destroyed, along with others of their ilk from Bellman’s pen.
                      These Biblical songs are of importance for the development of Bellman’s style, since they lead directly to the production of Fredman’s Epistles (see below), which has links to the New Testament.  In performance, they were also mixed in with the songs of the next immediate step in Bellman’s development, that of the Brotherhood poetry.

Brotherhood Ceremonies.
In the entertainments of the 18th century in Stockholm, orders (like the Masonic Temple) and brotherhooods had a special place.  Not only the Free Masons, but the Arla Coldinu Fraternity, the Woodsmen’s Order and others had important weekly and monthly gatherings.  Some of these had roots back in the Middle Ages (the Guilds), while others, like the Amarante Order, established by Queen Christina (1626-89), were rejuvenated in the 18th century. There were certain orders for the Noble Estate, and others for the Estate of the Burghers.  Like the expanding coffee-house culture of the time, there were opportunities to discuss political issues as well as to sing or to present literary works, as well as the usual drinking activities. Many of the orders engaged in highly stylized ritual and hierarchic ceremonies.
                      Bellman, with his natural talents, was a member of several of these clubs.  His Biblical parodies were easy to transfer into the ceremonies of these fraternities, with their penchant for high ritual. As one could imagine, Bellman was quick to create a parodic, fantasy-order for alcoholics. Statutes were prepared that stipulated that no one was allowed into this order—The Order of Bacchus—unless he had twice lain helplessly drunk in some gutter. In the Chapters of the Order (as their meetings were called), Bellman’s drastic comic talent had full play, as well as a new trait, the imitation of musical instruments and other sounds. It is probable that the first of these Chapters were held in 1766, in the house of the Lissander family (see above, in the section on his Public Career). The first time Bellman is named as a performer is in the diary of the poet Johan Gabriel Oxenstierna, who wrote on December 4, 1769:

Bergklint and Kexél came up to me and convinced me to follow them to Commissary Lissander to watch Bellman’s comic act.  I went along, and never in my life have I laughed so much as this last evening.  Bellman has established an Order in honor of Bacchus, into which no one is allowed unless they have been seen by everybody lying in the gutter at least twice. Bellman holds his Chapter meetings once in awhile, dubs knights of the Order according to their special merits, and last evening he held a special ceremony for a deceased knight of the Order.  Everything was in verse, and set to melodies from the opera and theater.  He sings and plays the cittern.

In the beginning, it would appear that these Order of Bacchus entertainments were solo pieces. They consisted of songs interspersed with dialog. But later texts, after 1769, show a more complex structure, with alexandrine verse, developed scenic design, processions and choral parts, so it is clear that he had a larger cast in mind. All these Chapter meetings center around certain important Knights of the Order—names such as Janke Jensen, Trundman, Glock, Lundholm and others are repeated—taken from commonly known real visitors to the hundreds of Stockholm taverns at the time. The poetry connected with this fictional Order grew in extent and complexity until about 1771, after which it was replaced by other genres for a time, and as Bellman began to be conscious of his career needs during the reign of a the new King, Gustavus III (who had just succeeded his less theatrically-minded father, Adolf Fredrik).
                      But as noted above, the poetry of the Order of Bacchus did not entirely stop, and its book-length Chapter meeting, Bacchi Tempel öpnadt vid en Hjeltes död (The Temple of Bacchus, Opened at the Death of a Hero) was published with extensive illustrations in 1783.  This is Bellman’s most comprehensive single work of poetry. He had expended a great deal of time and energy in its production.
It is a bewildering piece:  classical and Christian mythology is mixed with Swedish drunken figures, in a comprehensive whole that is both erudite and bizarre in its burlesque humor. It is one of the most peculiar works in all of Swedish literature. Some of the songs that are sprinkled throughout the poetic text are still popular in Sweden: ”Böljan sig mindre rör” (The wave is now quieted), ”Bort allt hvad oro gör” (Away with all cares) and ”Hwem är som ej vår Broder minns” (What man here remembers not our Brother). [All three can be heard in our Bellman Songs menu]
The action is set in an imaginary Bacchic temple in an Arcadian landscape on an idyllic island. Swedish features are mixed with the classical shepherds’ geography, as crows and pine trees appear beside the parrots and almond trees of a southern clime. The overarching idea is that of preparations for a ceremony in honor of the deceased Movitz (Stockholm alcoholic).  The guests are worshippers of Bacchus from all of Stockholm’s pubs. The high priestess is (the lady of ill repute) Ulla Winblad, who is pregnant, possibly with Movitz’ child. The action procedes with reminisences or flashbacks, pronouncements over the dead hero, and the ceremonies connected with his burial. At the end, Ulla gives birth to a new little Movitz, and the sorrow gives way to joyous toasting and salutes.
                      The strange text developed from a more restrained parentation that Bellman began at the end of the 1770’s.  It was eventually reworked:  quite beautiful descriptions of nature in the high metrical style, with alexandrines (paired rhyming lines with six iambic feet) were added, along with choral parts. Two of Sweden’s outstanding artists, the brothers Elias and Johan Fredrik Martin, provided the illustrations.
                      It was an extremely ambitious work that was advertised in the newspaper in 1782:  ”...a Poetic, Comic and Musical Work, called The Temple of Bacchus...provided with vignettes and copperplate drawings by known Swedish masters, and its music engraved in copperplate as well”.
                      It may have been Bellman’s ambition to establish his reputation amongst the more accepted group of Swedish poets by means of The Temple of Bacchus.  Bellman had always had difficulty freeing himself from the stigma of a bacchanalian clown and entertainer that had followed him since he began writing.  Indeed, the peculiar new work was reviewed favorably in the magazine Svenska Parnassen (The Swedish Parnassus), to which the elite poets of the Gustavian Age contributed. But any hope of a place alongside them in the Swedish Parnassus was soon dashed.  Bellman remained, in the minds of his contemporaries, ”one of a kind.”

Religious Poetry
In addition to the early translations and exercises, Bellman wrote religious poetry all his life.  These poems appeared alongside the bacchanalian works, especially during the 1770’s.  Bellman did not appear to consider this as a spiritual conflict. He took part in the preparations for the Psalm Book of 1763 with a hymn, ”Fader, omsorg haf om mig” (Father, for my care provide”). Other spiritual poems were published in various newspapers or separately in printed booklets.  For example, the newspaper Dagligt Allehanda published anonymously in 1771 his set of eight reflections over the Christmas holiday. Another anonymous Bellman product was a set of seven evangelical poems for Shrove Monday to Palm Sunday, these appeared in 1787. In that same year, a definitive edition appeared of Bellman’s versified interpretations of the gospel texts for services between the first Sunday in Advent and Palm Sunday. It bore the title Zions Högtid (The Festival of Zion), and was designated as ”The First Volume”. No second volume ever appeared, but a few poems in celebration of Easter were later composed.
                      Bellman’s ambitions with regard to these religious poems are shown in a letter he sent to King Gustavus III in 1784.  Here Bellman expressed the hope that the King would order the Church authorities to purchase the poet’s religious thoughts in order to have them used in churches across the country. This request was never granted. Bellman did, however, receive permission to print his religious poetry, providing that he change the title of the work from the proposed ”Zions Tempel” (The Temple of Zion) to something else, since the working title seemed to lie too close to the newly published Temple of Bacchus (see above), causing unwarranted associations in the public readership. Bellman allowed the correction of the title, and the work did appear. It was received without enthusiasm, however, and the success Bellman had counted on never materialized.

Fredman’s Epistles and Fredman’s Songs
The idea for these collections of songs that have made Bellman famous occurred to Bellman already in the 1760’s. As has been noted above, Bellman had already written Biblical parodies and parodies of the popular Orders. But there is a significantly different and more original thought behind these new pieces of poetry. The portrayal of the funeral in 1767 of an actual alcoholic, a public drunk who at one time had been a highly regarded clockmaker to the Royal Family introduced to Bellman’s listeners a new poetic figure—that of Jean Fredman. The song celebrating Fredman’s funeral may be found in the volume of Fredman’s Songs, where it is no. 26.  Its text is closely related to the parodic songs concerning the Order of Bacchus (see also Fredman’s Songs nos. 1-6). And it appeared that the transition to a new poetic form was rather gradual. In the first Fredman’s Epistle (not the first in the collection, but the one that was chronologically the earliest), there is a mention of the ‘Apostles of Brandy’, a term that the Bellman researcher Gunnar Hillbom has interpreted as a transitional stage from the Order of Bacchus to the new form. Soon the ‘apostle’ attribute is confined to Fredman himself, and he sends ‘epistles’ to the faithful drunken congregations in various taverns in Stockholm. The parallel to the Epistles of Paul to the new Christian congregations is, of course, intended. As the Christian evangelists preach about eternity and our preparations for it, Fredman preaches about seizing the moment in which we live. The earliest of Fredman’s Epistles are rich in allusions to the Swedish Bible of King Carl XII. Gradually these Biblical references diminish, as the collection of Fredman’s Epistles is enriched with other ideas. The Epistles become much less like letters, more like little stories, and the poetry becomes much more complex.
                      The cast of characters in Fredman’s Epistlar is rather large, but certain characters dominate the action. Experts on Bellman and on the history of Stockholm have iudentified most of the names in the poems as real people who lived there in the 18th century.  But they are not ‘real’ as they appear in the songs. They are given new personae. In their actions they take on fleshed-out personalities that engage our sympathy as well as our laughter. Unlike the more ritualistic Order of Bacchus poetry, the Epistles are clearly connected to the streets and taverns of Stockholm. But, as the researcher Lars Lönnroth has noted, the boundaries between the Order of Bacchus poetry and the Epistles is always a bit fluid. When Fredman, in the very last Epistle (no. 82) finally takes leave of the prostitute Ulla Winblad at a breakfast in the park, ”with the accompaniment of all the instruments,” the two types of poetry seem to come together. According to Lars Lönnroth, the ”temple” in Epistle no. 81 is hardly the church of Maria Magdalena near Bellman’s childhood home, but rather a classical temple borrowed from the world of the Order of Bacchus. 
                      The first fifty of these startling new songs were produced remarkably quickly, in the space of less than three years, according to Gunnar Hillbom’s datings. After that, the pace slackened and, for a time, stopped altogether. A last flowering of poetry followed the news that the Epistles, after many fruitless years of publication plans, were finally in press. It is probable that the final poems—nos. 79-82—were written just as the book was in its final stages of production.
                      Bellman had applied for permission to publish his Fredman’s Epistles back in the early 1770’s. The plan then was for a collection of 4 x 25 songs, or 100 in all. The project was not successful. Since Bellman was also active at this time as an entertainer, some of the Epistles had become well known, and there were songs by Bellman that began to be circulated in unauthorized broadsides and in handwritten song books. In 1774 he managed to secure a ”printing privilege” (like a copyright), but he was forced to sell the privilege to the owner of the Royal Printing Office, who did not follow through with a publication. Finally in 1780, the plans for a publication of Bellman’s most celebrated works were taken up by an acquaintence, the War Councilor Eric Weste, along with a music publisher, Olof Åhlström. Weste managed to get Åhlström involved, in order to provide the vital service of printing the music. A leading critic and poet, Johan Henrik Kellgren, was brought in to the circle to provide a critical overview of the text material. Everything that might be considered vulgar was”corrected,” several of the Epistlar were eliminated entirely, and the collection was given a more uniform appearance, although it will remain a matter of discussion if Bellman’s own intentions were followed closely. Lars Lönnroth has noted that it is clear that ”Bellman, in spite of having been considered a court poet for some time and acknowledged as a ’genius’, still was found to need censureship when his work was to be printed”.  Kellgren wrote a Preface to the work that itself has become famous. Weste read proof. And Bellman—where was Bellman in all this activity?—supplied a little note at the beginning of the volume that he ”both with respect to the poetry and to the music has looked over, corrected and acknowledged” the collection.
                      On the 16th of October 1790, Fredman’s Epistles was finally for sale in Stockholm. The editorial committee continued their work, and almost exactly a year later the Epistles were followed by a new collection, called Fredman’s Songs. The new book is a much less cohesive piece, and actually has little to do with the figure of Fredman. One will find here drinking songs of a more general variety, some pieces from the Order of Bacchus, a number of the early Biblical parodies, and several magnificent lyrical pieces. Gunnar Hillbom has argued that the two volumes were planned as a single unit. The title was originally to be ”The Swedish Anacreon”. One of Bellman’s friends, Olof Bergklint, had first likened Bellman to the classical Greek poet of wine and song, but it is possible that Kellgren (who earlier in his career had mocked Bellman for having acquired just this title) removed the epithet;  he is also somewhat ambiguous about this matter in his Preface, finally acceding to the thought that we should simply accept Anacreon as Anacreon and Bellman as Bellman—in other words, no poet’s repute or special talent should be transferred to that of another.

Dramatic Works
Of the nineteen volumes that comprise the completed standard edition of Bellman’s works, one (volume 6) is devoted to Bellman’s plays. There are about ten of these. There is, of course, a great deal of  ‘drama’ in the Order of Bacchus and the Epistles as well.
The dramatic works were largely written as divertimentos for special occasions, and they are more noteworthy for their sprightly songs than for their dramatic plots. The first little dramas were performed at the Lissander family’s home in the late 1760’s, and several of them served as entertainments at the Swedish Royal Court about two decades later. By that time Bellman had personal contact with many reknowned singers and actors who also played an important role at the court of the drama-loving King Gustavus III. Towards the end of his career, Bellman supplied the Royal Court with several entertainments: a little one-act play, Värdshuset (The Inn), a royalistic comedy in 1787, followed by three divertimentos in 1790, and a more fully developed comedy, Mantalsskrifningen (The Tax Census), for New Year’s festivities between 1790 and 1791. Bellman’s friends were also the recipients of smaller dramatic works, among them the lyrical Fiskarstugan (The Fishing Cottage) for the Palmstedt family in 1792.

Prose Works and Occasional Poetry
Together with his friend and fellow poet, Olof Kexél, Bellman began a comic magazine in 1781.  It was called Hwad Behagas? (What’s Your Pleasure?). Eight issues appeared during the year 1781. (An article in Swedish by Torkel Stålmarck may be read following this link.)
                      Newspapers were a new cultural phenomenon during the 1700’s, and their form, often a pot pourri of short news clips, announcements, moral debate, poetry and miscellaneous prose articles made them an easy target for parody. Bellman’s and Kexél’s short-lived magazine filled this role. Its framework consists of a fictional society—Pro Vino—with principals known to the Stockholm public through the now well known Epistles of Fredman.  The contents of the magazine include surrealistic and exaggerated jokes, stories and pretended biographies, together with conversations of the Pro Vino Society.
                      Bellman otherwise produced very little prose: a few letters have been preserved, and some autobiographical notes referred to as the Lefvernesbeskrifning (see ”The Last Chapter” below).
                      By way of contrast, six whole volumes of Bellman’s writings in the Standard Edition consist of so-called ”occasional poetry”—pieces written on festive and other occasions to the King and members of the Royal Family, Bellman’s circle of closer friends, patrons etc. There are more than 1000 of these poems. Often neglected as works of only marginal interest, they are a rich source of information about the time in which Bellman lived, as well as further proof of Bellman’s formal and lyrical gift as a musical poet. Even in the most traditionally fashioned poems of praise, Bellman left his personal mark on these poems and songs.
                      A devoted follower of King Gustavus III (1746-1792) throughout his reign, Bellman took the opportunity during the tumultuous days of the King’s coup d’état in August, 1771, of showing his support in a rousing anthem, ”Gustafs skål” (A Skoal for Gustaf), that caught on immediately and long remained a kind of National song for Sweden. The King showed his appreciation for the propaganda value of this anthem, calling Bellman to the Royal Palace and, as noted above, designating him Court Secretary and providing him with an annual pension. While Bellman never engaged in direct political debates, his loyalty to the King is clear, and his royalistic songs were spread as quickly as his bacchanalian songs, taking up public questions concerning war and peace.
                      The occasional poetry written for his circle of friends, including members of his own family, are filled with the vicissitudes of life in difficult circumstances; songs at the death of his child Elis, or the death of his good friend Elis Schröderheim’s wife, are especially touching. The Standard Edition (for those who can read some Swedish and wish to probe more deeply into the life and times of Bellman) provides an enormous wealth of background information on this considerable part of the poet’s work. In the occasional poetry, one can find rich proof of Bellman’s range and mastery as a poet, as well as a kind of diary of his activities during thirty years of active production.

Bellman’s Poetics
Bellman was a master in all metrical forms current in his time and place. But most immediately obvious to the reader must be his remarkable song verses. Their appearance on the page is in itself striking—with long, complex verse structures (Epistel no. 29 has 21 lines,  no. 50 has 37!), the rhymes and metrics of which are repeated exactly in each succeeding verse. These verses are built up on complex melodies (see ”Bellman’s Music” below), which have been analyzed by the poet, who follows every repetition and nuance in the tune with a verbal equivalent. A sequence of five or six words on a single rhyme is not uncommon.  The action of the poem, which is often lively, is related in almost breathless, short parallel phrases or words, often reflecting a drastically humorous situation. The early Epistles are filled with cries and imperatives to the tavern guests:  Se, hör, känn, märk, drick, sjung! (Look! Listen! Feel! Notice! Drink! Sing!). These imperatives give the reader or listener a feeling of being present in an action that is taking place. And yet the whole concept of Fredman’s Epistles is intentionally set in the past: that this was part of Bellman’s original intention is seen in his own prose introduction to the collection (left unpublished until the Standard Edition, vol. I, p. XIf.). Since it is Bellman himself (as actor-entertainer) who plays the role of a deceased bacchanalian apostle, presenting a bit of fictional ‘history’ as if it were unfolding before our eyes, the boundaries between reality and fantasy, the here-and-now versus the dead and gone, are effectively confused (as Lars Lönnroth has demonstrated in his book, Den dubbla scenen).  At times the Epistles seem to lapse more clearly into a nostalgic past time (as in no. 36), but the present tense is still used to describe Fredman’s farewell in the last Epistle, no. 82.
                      The Epistles of Fredman begin, as noted above, with a parodic Biblical concept, as quasi-apostolic letters to a congregation. Some antiquated Biblical language is found in early Epistles, but it is soon abandoned, as the story-telling aspect of the songs gains in importance. A lovely lyrical quality is found in some of the Epistles from later years, and a removal from the sordid taverns of central Stockholm out to the greenery of surrounding parks.
                      The tavern guests and prostitutes depicted in the Epistles are also given a mythological dimension, with the help of a few classical gods, such as the godess of love, Venus (also referred to in the texts as ”Fröja,” which is derived from the Norse Freyja but has no conceptual relation to Nordic mythology), the unruly Cupid, Mars, Charon (Death’s ferryman), Neptune’s water-nymphs, etc. These figures can be seen partly as a comic backdrop for the lower-class scenes, but also as a metaphorical representation of some of the daily realities facing Bellman’s characters, or simply as poetic figures of speech (”Freyja’s grave” is the bed for love-making, ”Bacchus’ kitchen” is the tavern, etc.).
                      In more traditional forms of poetry, Bellman showed himself to be a master of alexandrines (12-syllable, paired lines). The classical French verse, from which its Swedish equivalent is derived, allowed no vulgar or  ‘low’ subjects to be presented in alexandrines; ‘proper’ high poetry was to record the deeds of kings and heroes, or figures from classical literature. Bellman could use this technique, and in his poems of hommage to the King, his alexandrines are beautifully fashioned, without satire. In the texts of the Order of Bacchus, however, all bets are off.  The contrasts there between high rhetoric and low characters were undoubtedly more of a drastic break in style than that which we perceive today. But Bellman’s mastery is always evident. His alexandrines even drift into the musical poetry, as in the famous lyric, ”Träd fram, du nattens Gud” (Step forth, thou God of night), which became Fredman’s Song no. 32.

Bellman’s Music
As a songwriter and entertainer in Stockholm’s bourgeois circles in the 1760’s, Bellman began his poetic career using the art of  ”parody song” which was the most common form of entertainment of the day. Old tunes were reworked with new verses, and spread—even by people who could not read a note of music—by means of a reference:  ”To be sung as...”  The public appetite for new songs (table songs, political songs, love songs, drinking songs) was enormous, and the songbooks of the time reflect this constant search for new material.  Certainly ”hit” tunes from popular French operettas, German student songs and English ballad opera tunes circulated with new Swedish texts, but more surprisingly, instrumental dance tunes (minuets, contradances, polonaises) were also made into songs. Bellman’s special talent for setting text to melody (see above), his hair-raising humor, along with his inimitable talent at imitating voices, musical instruments and other noises, made his performances into the special events like the one described by Oxenstierna in his diary. His musical training was probably not theoretical or even very extensive, although he says in his Lefvernesbeskrifning that in 1756 he had himself given lessons on the cittern, ”an instrument that I played incomparably well”.  His voice was noted as being flexible, although not loud. And he was not capable of writing down his melodies for publication, as evidenced by the repeated remarks that he had had professional help with this (Wasenholtz, Åhlström etc.). During his activity as an entertainer, however, it is clear that many of the melodies he had picked up from various sources become ‘his’,  that is to say, there were alterations in the melodies that made them significantly different from their sources, and impossible to re-use with the traditional reference ”To be sung as...”.  They had, for all practical purposes, become ”Bellman melodies”, and they are referred to in this way today. The alterations could be as small as a single note (”That one note was worth a golden ducat!” exclaimed the composer J.M. Kraus about a change in Epistle 81), or as large as an addition or subtraction of several measures, a change from 2/4 to 3/8 time, from major to minor key, or a host of other alterations.

The melodies you find in Fredman’s Epistles and Fredman’s Songs are, then, Bellman’s personal variants of popular tunes from the middle of the 18th century. The publisher and composer Olof Åhlström, who made the musical arrangements for the two volumes based upon Bellman’s private oral performance, claimed that  ”Not a single one was Bellman’s own melody”; yet, by the same token, they all belong to the Bellman song tradition, and in cases where the tunes are recognizable, they can be shown in most instances to have superseded their predecessors in terms of popularity and worth.  
                      Toward the end of his life, Bellman followed the change in fashion, which began to lean toward the type of song composition that we recognize from the Romantic Age:  the text was produced first, and a professional composer then made a musical setting.  Bellman’s talented composer friends (Kraus, Wikmanson) collaborated with the poet in this way, just as leading pictorial artists (the Martin brothers, Sergel) provided their own illustrations as a tribute to the legendary poet.

A Last Chapter
Fredman’s Epistles and Fredman’s Songs did not provide its publisher with immediate financial success. Bellman’s own profit from the publication of his life work was indeed minimal.  He tried to produce a few dramatic pieces and some translations, and he was still in demand as an entertainer at private gatherings. But his voice was failing, and it is reported that he became increasingly unwilling to perform.  He still wrote numerous songs and poems for patrons such as Helena Qviding.
                      The murder of King Gustavus III in 1792 was a terrible blow for the poet. He had supported the King for more than two decades with his songs and hommages, and in return, had received both encouragement and financial rewards. There was no comparable advantage in the aftermath of the Gustavian Age.
                      The publication of Fredman’s Epistles in 1790 had in any case been a moment of literary triumph for Bellman. The four years that followed brought, by contrast, only a degrading catastrophy. The low point occurred in the spring of 1794, when Bellman was arrested for his debts and incarcerated in the Stockholm Castle for ten weeks; only his title of Court Secretary saved him from the debtor’s jail itself.

Bellman’s debt, in this case, was actually quite inconsequential, but he was unable to pay it. Bellman and his wife were placed under economic guardianship while the matters were being cleared up.  It has been said that this incarceration broke Bellman’s health; the truth may be that his condition had been failing for some time. The one bright spot during the spring of 1794 was that his family doctor, Anders Blad, requested (at a small sum per page) that he write his autobiography. The result was rather small (see Standard Edition vol. 12, p. 16-23) and some of the facts unreliable; but the information contained is extremely valuable, and glimpses of the young, clever poet appear here and there.
                      During the fall of 1794 Bellman often lay sick. A final semi-public performance and the home of the opera director Rålamb was a success, however, the guests are reported both to have laughed and cried as well. Bellman lay ill from the beginning of 1795, and died shortly after his birthday, on February 11, 1795.
                      He was buried in the churchard of Klara Church; there was no headstone to mark the grave. Today it is possible to visit the churchyard, to see the Bellman monument with its fine medallion portrait, conceived by Bellman’s friend, Tobias Sergel. This monument was erected by the Swedish Academy in 1851, however, and it does not mark the exact spot where Bellman was buried.  It is only known that Bellman lies somewhere within the boundaries of the small churchyard.

Bellman’s Memory
After Bellman’s death, his poetry was celebrated in different ways. The fraternal order, Par Bricole (of which he had been a member), preserved and continued his memory and his works, and it continues to do so today.  In the beginning of the 19th century, students and schoolchildren sang Bellman’s songs with enthusiasm. The songbooks of used by clubs at Swedish universities included (and still include) numbers of Bellman’s songs. A few songs of his were passed on orally and became de facto ‘folksongs’. Bellman-like performances by ”troubadours” or actor-singers, beginning with the  famous opera singer Karsten, carried on the special art form that Bellman had developed.  And from the beginning of the 20th century, a steady stream of performers—from Sven Scholander, Anders Börje, Sven-Bertil Taube to Cornelis Vreeswijk and Fred Åkerström—have  leant their special gifts to the enrichment of the Bellman tradition.
                      At the beginning of the Romantic Age (1812-25), the young, radical students and authors, particularly at the University of Uppsala, proclaimed Bellman to be a Swedish Orpheus, a divinely inspired Swedish poetic genius, whose poetic and musical gifts flowed effortlessly from his pen.  Later generations have emphasized other aspects of his work:  his artistic brilliance, his social commentary, his role both as a conveyor of old musical-poetic tradition and as the renewer of this tradition.
                      Academic research around Bellman, besides eulogies and biography, was begun in the middle of the 19th century.  The 20th century, however, has experienced an upsurge in interest in Bellman. For researchers interested in Bellman, the Standard Edition, published by the Bellman Society, is the central repository for the works of and commentary upon Bellman.  From the latter half of the 20th century onward, a number of dissertations have appeared, and there are new ones in the offing.
                      A concordance over Bellman’s entire production has been compiled in Gothenburg. Numerous biographical studies have appeared, and a number of literary works (novels, plays, TV-productions) based more or less accurately on aspects of his life.  Bellman’s influence on later Nordic authors has been both deep and extensive, and may, thanks to newer translations, spread to an increasing number of countries. 
So Bellman’s immortality, as was proclaimed shortly after his death, has been richly confirmed.