En vildmark av sten : Stockholm i litteraturen 1897–1916

Sammanfattning: This study explores the urban fiction emerging in Stockholm around the turn of the 20th century. It modifies earlier research by arguing that the fascination with the city transcends traditional conventions of genre. The main theory is that Stockholm’s conversion into a metropolitan space compels a new form of literary expression, a sort of urban aesthetics. The thesis claims that the urban prose of Stockholm is co-creative: the authors articulate a myth of Stockholm, an image of the Swedish capital as a modern urban space. Based on Henri Lefebvre’s ideas about space as something that is created, it is argued that the authors are founders of a city identity that influences people’s understanding of themselves and their new environment. The thesis maintains that the authors’ cities of words, their representational spaces, stem as much from personal fantasies and real-life experiences as from other works of art and literature. The dissertation contributes to our knowledge of urban literature by placing it against a back- ground of urban theory. Hence, it paves the way for further research on the city as a complex of symbols within Swedish literature, a subject that has not been examined to any notable extent. The analysis of how the urban environment has been conveyed and who has been given the priv- ilege of interpretation also deepens our understanding of contemporary Stockholm, real or imaginary. The thesis consists of two parts. The first part examines the background and genesis of the fiction type. Part two consists of analytical readings. The following authors are given particular attention: Henning Berger, Martin Koch, Maria Sandel and Sigfrid Siwertz. In four chapters, their respective repre- sentations of Stockholm are explored. Theories of urban space, modernity and gender, as well as Franco Moretti’s idea of a literary geography, guide the readings.