Editing Carl Michael Bellman (section)

== Biography ==

=== Early life ===
[[File:Daurerska huset 1861.jpg|thumb|left|Bellman's birthplace, the Stora Daurerska house in [[Södermalm]], Stockholm. [[Carl Svante Hallbeck]], 1861]]
Carl Michael Bellman was born on 4 February 1740 in the Stora Daurerska house, which was one of the finest in the [[Södermalm]] district of [[Stockholm]]. The house was the property of his maternal grandmother, Catharina von Santen, who had brought up his father, orphaned as a small child. Carl Michael's parents were Johan Arndt Bellman, a civil servant, and Catharina Hermonia, daughter of the priest of the local [[Maria Magdalena Church|Maria parish]]. Her family was wholly Swedish, whereas Johan's family had German origins: they had come from [[Bremen]] in about 1660.<ref name=BellmanSoc /> When Carl Michael was four the family moved to a smaller, single storey dwelling called the Lilla Daurerska house. He briefly went to a local school, but was educated mainly by private tutors. He was the eldest of 15 children who lived long enough for their births to be registered<!--; six more children died young, according to CMB's autobiography-->. His parents had intended him to become a priest, but he fell ill with a fever, and on recovering found he could express any thought in rhyming verse. His parents appointed a tutor called Ennes who Bellman called "a genius". Bellman was taught French, German, Italian, English, and Latin. He read [[Horace]] and [[Nicolas Boileau-Despréaux|Boileau]]; Ennes taught him to write poetry and to translate French and German hymns. He was familiar with stories from the Bible including the [[Apocrypha]], many of which found their way into the songs he composed in later life. However, expenses including the Swedish tradition of hospitality left the family with no money to start him off in life with a journey to the south of Europe, such as to Spain to visit his uncle, Jacob Martin Bellman, who was the Swedish Consul in [[Cádiz]]. Carl Michael translated a French book by Du Four and dedicated it to his uncle, but the hint was ignored. Deep in debt, at the end of 1757 the family sent Carl Michael to Sweden's central bank [[Sveriges Riksbank|Riksbanken]] as an unpaid trainee. He had no aptitude for numbers, instead discovering the taverns and brothels which were to figure so largely in his songs.{{sfn|Britten Austin|1967|pp=43–46}}

[[File:233-Bellman-Svenska teatern 1.jpg|thumb|upright|Bellman by [[Elias Martin]], 18th century]]
As the banking career was not working out – and as trainees were (after a period with a relaxed regime) again required to sit an exam, for which Bellman was ill-equipped – he took a break in 1758, going to [[Uppsala University]], where [[Carl Linnaeus|Linnaeus]] was professor of botany. The idea of attending lectures was no more congenial than banking, and he stayed only one term; one of his songs (FS 28) records that "He contemplated [[Uppsala]]—the beer stung his mouth—love distracted his wits..." However, he met young men (such as [[Carl Bonde (1741–1791)|Carl Bonde]]) from wealthy and noble families, went drinking with them, and started to entertain them with his songs.{{sfn|Britten Austin|1967|pp=47–51}} Bellman returned to the bank job, and seems quickly to have fallen into financial difficulty: "a jungle of debts, sureties and bondsmen began to proliferate around him."{{sfn|Britten Austin|1967|p=53}} The character of bailiff Blomberg appears in his songs (e.g. FS 14), constantly trying to track down debtors and seize all their property. The law allowed the bankrupt only one way to escape from debtors' prison: to leave Sweden. In 1763, Bellman ran away to Norway. From the safety of [[Halden]] (then called Fredrikshald) he writes to the Council applying first for a passport, and then for a safe-conduct, both of which were granted. Meanwhile, his father had first mortgaged the Lilla Daurerska house, and then sold it: the family's finances were no better than his own. Even worse, by April 1764 the Bank had become tired of the riotous behaviour of its young men: its investigations showed that Bellman had been the ringleader, leading them (the Bank wrote) into "gambling, masquerades, picnics and suchlike". Bellman resigned, his safe banking career at an end.{{sfn|Britten Austin|1967|pp=55–56}}

=== Poetry and song ===
{{further information|Fredman's songs|Fredman's epistles|Bacchi Tempel}}
[[File:Bellmanhuset.jpg|thumb|left|The Stockholm house where Bellman lived from 1770 to 1774]]

In 1765, Bellman's parents died; deeply moved, he wrote a religious poem. Then his fortunes improved: someone found him a job, first in the Office of Manufactures, then in the Customs, and he was able once again to live happily in Stockholm, observing the people of the city, with at least a modest salary.{{sfn|Britten Austin|1967|pp=58-59}} In 1768, his life's work as we now know it got under way:

{{blockquote|Bellman had begun to compose an entirely new sort of song. A genre which 'had no model and can have no successors' ([[Johan Henric Kellgren|Kellgren]]), these songs were to grow swiftly in number until they made up the great work on which Bellman's reputation as a poet chiefly rests.{{sfn|Britten Austin|1967|p=60}}}}

[[File:Fredmans Epistel 23 music start.jpg|thumb|300px|The start of [[Fredmans epistlar|Fredman's Epistle]] No. 23, "[[Ack du min moder|Alas, thou my mother]]". To a graceful [[minuet]] tune, Fredman, lying drunk in the gutter outside the Crawl-in tavern, "a summer night in the year 1768", blames his mother for his conception; but a morning visit to the tavern revives his spirits.]]

Bellman mostly played the [[cittern]],{{efn|The instrument was inherited from his grandfather, Johan Arndt Bellman (1663–1709), a professor and later chancellor of Uppsala University, who supposedly bought it in Rome.<ref name=BellmanSoc /> It has survived, and has been exhibited at the National Museum in Stockholm.}} becoming the most famous player of this instrument in Sweden. His portrait by [[Per Krafft the Elder|Per Krafft]] shows him playing an oval instrument with twelve strings, arranged as six pairs.<ref>{{cite book | url=https://www.era.lib.ed.ac.uk/bitstream/1842/5776/4/Poulopoulos%202011.pdf |archive-url=https://ghostarchive.org/archive/20221009/https://www.era.lib.ed.ac.uk/bitstream/1842/5776/4/Poulopoulos%202011.pdf |archive-date=9 October 2022 |url-status=live | title=The Guittar in the British Isles, 1750–1810 (PhD Thesis) | publisher=[[University of Edinburgh]] | author=Poulopoulos, Panagiotis | year=2011 | pages=199}}</ref> His first songs were "parody songs", a common form of entertainment at the time.<ref name=BellmanSoc />

Between 1769 and 1773, Bellman wrote 65 of 82 of his Epistles, as well as many poems. He attempted to publish the poems in 1772, but was unable to obtain the permission of the king, [[Gustav III]], as a political coup intervened. He finally managed to obtain the permission in 1774, but soon discovered that the cost of printing, especially as he was determined to publish the sheet music alongside the text, was prohibitive given his ruinous finances, and he was forced to put off his plans.<ref name=Kleveland7>{{harvnb|Kleveland|Ehrén|1984|p=7}}</ref> In 1776, the king gave him a [[sinecure]] job as secretary to the national lottery; this supported him for the rest of his life.<ref name=SNL>{{cite web |title=Carl Michael Bellman |url=https://snl.no/Carl_Michael_Bellman |publisher=[[Store norske leksikon|Store Norske Leksikon]] |language=no |access-date=26 January 2015}}</ref>

On 19 December 1777, at the age of 37, he married the 22-year-old Lovisa Grönlund in [[Klara Church]]. They had four children, Gustav, Elis, Karl, and Adolf; Elis died young.<ref name="BellmanSoc">{{cite web |url=http://www.bellman.org/index.php/om-bellman-och-hans-verk/biografi | title=Carl Michael Bellmans liv och verk. En minibiografi (The Life and Works of Carl Michael Bellman. A Short Biography) |language=sv |publisher=The Bellman Society |access-date=25 April 2015}}</ref>
Throughout his life, but especially during the 1770s, Bellman also wrote religious poetry, seeing no conflict with his bacchanalian works; he published collections of his religious poems in 1781 and 1787.<ref name=BellmanSoc /> He wrote some ten plays (none with particularly strong plots) as [[divertimento]]s, some of them later serving as entertainments at the royal court. The plays fill Volume 6 of his collected works.<ref name=BellmanSoc /> In 1783, Bellman brought out ''The Temple of Bacchus'' (''[[Bacchi Tempel]]''), perhaps hoping to establish his reputation as a poet, rather than the merry entertainer that he was in fact known as at the time; but he always stood out in people's minds as unique, a different kind of writer and performer.<ref name=BellmanSoc />

[[File:Mollberg playing Bowls.jpg|thumb|left|300px|Wash drawing by [[Pehr Hilleström]] in a 1792 letter showing Bellman in [[Nationella dräkten|Swedish dress]] with Mollberg playing bowls.{{sfn|Britten Austin|1967|p=facing page 72}}]]

Bellman's main works are the 82 ''[[Fredmans epistlar|Fredman's epistles]]'' (''Fredmans epistlar'', 1790) and the 65 ''[[Fredmans sånger|Fredman's songs]]'' (''Fredmans sånger'', 1791). Their themes include the pleasures of [[Alcohol intoxication|drunkenness]] and [[Human sexual activity|sex]]. Against this backdrop, Bellman deals with themes of love, death, and the transitoriness of life. The settings of his songs reflect life in 18th-century [[Stockholm]], but often refer to [[Greek mythology|Greek]] and [[Roman mythology|Roman]] mythological characters such as the goddess of love, [[Venus (mythology)|Venus]] (or her Swedish equivalent, [[Freyja|Fröja]]), [[Neptune (mythology)|Neptune]] and his retinue of water-nymphs, the love-god [[Cupid]], the ferryman [[Charon (mythology)|Charon]] and [[Dionysus|Bacchus]], the god of wine and pleasure. Many of ''Fredman's Epistles'' are peopled by a cast which includes the clockmaker [[Jean Fredman]], the prostitute or "nymph" [[Ulla Winblad]], the alcoholic ex-soldier Movitz, and Father Berg, a virtuoso on several instruments. Some of these were based on living models, others probably not. Ulla Winblad was widely believed to have been closely based on [[Maria Kristina Kiellström]], though the real woman, a silk worker once arrested for alleged prostitution, was not the ideal romantic figure of Bellman's songs.<ref>{{harvnb|Kleveland|Ehrén|1984|p=9}}</ref>{{sfn|Britten Austin|1967|pp=84–89}}{{sfn|Lönnroth|2005|pp=187–216, 297–333}} ''Fredman's songs'' also include [[Old Testament]] figures such as [[Noah]] and [[Book of Judith|Judith]].<ref name=BellmanSoc /><ref name=SNL />

[[File:François Boucher, Venus triumf (1740) - 03.jpg|thumb|300px|[[François Boucher]]'s 1740 painting ''Triumph of Venus'' is the model for Epistle 25, "[[Blåsen nu alla|All blow now!]]", where Bellman humorously contrasts [[rococo]] classical allusions with bawdy remarks.]]

Bellman achieved his effects of [[rococo]] elegance and humour through precisely organised incongruity. For example, Epistle 25, "[[Blåsen nu alla]]!" (All blow now!), begins with Venus crossing the water, as in [[François Boucher]]'s''Triumph of Venus'', but when she disembarks, Bellman transforms her into a lustful ''Ulla Winblad''. Similarly, the ornate and civilized [[minuet]] melody of "[[Ack du min Moder]]" (Alas, thou my mother) contrasts with the text: Fredman is lying with a hangover in the gutter outside a tavern, complaining bitterly about life.{{sfn|Britten Austin|1967|p=61}}{{sfn|Hägg|1996|pp=156–157}} Ulla Winblad ("vineleaf") recurs through the Epistles; Britten Austin comments that

{{blockquote|''Ulla'' is at once a nymph of the taverns and a goddess of a rococo universe of graceful and hot imaginings.{{sfn|Britten Austin|1967|p=82}}}}

[[File:Fredman's Song 21 Så lunka vi så småningom.jpg|thumb|300px|left|Start of [[Fredmans sånger|Fredman's Song]] 21, "[[Så lunka vi så småningom]]" (So we gradually amble). March, [[Duple time|{{music|time|2|4}} time]], 1791. The song refers to "[[Bacchus]]'s tumult"; the gravediggers discuss whether the grave is too deep, taking swigs from a bottle of [[brännvin]].]]

The songs are "most ingeniously"{{sfn|Britten Austin|1967|p=63}} set to music, the melodies accentuated by the bold construction of music, word pictures and choice of words, while the music brings out a hidden dimension not seen if the words are simply read as verse.{{sfn|Britten Austin|1967|p=63}} The poems themselves, far from being the brilliant improvisations that they appear, are striking in their "formal virtuosity". They may be drinking songs in name, but in structure they are tightly woven into a precise metre, situating the "frenzied bacchanalia within a strict and decorous rococo frame."{{sfn|Britten Austin|1967|p=62}} The musicologist [[James Massengale]] writes that the technique of reusing tunes in musical [[parody]] had already been overused and had fallen into disrepute by Bellman's time, just as his subject matter was initially looked down on. Despite this, Massengale argues{{sfn|Massengale|1979|p=10}}

{{blockquote|Bellman chose to perfect his musical-poetic vehicle. He refers to the result ... not as 'parody' but as 'den muçiska Poesien', [musical poetry] ...<br><br>Bellman's exceptional case, then, is that of a poetic genius who worked with an art form which in the hands of others was usually insignificant.{{sfn|Massengale|1979|p=10}}}}

Massengale observes that Bellman was "fully aware of the complexity of the musical-poetic problem; his poems were not simply talented improvisations." and points out that Bellman was "also interested in concealing this complexity", with the discrepancies between the music and the poetry "''apparently'' resolved".{{sfn|Massengale|1979|p=10}}

Bellman was a gifted entertainer and mimic. He was able to

{{blockquote|go into a room apart and behind a half-open door mimic twenty or thirty people at the same time, a crowd pushing its way on to one of the [[Djurgården]] ferries, perhaps, or the uproarious atmosphere of a seaman's tavern. The illusion was so startling, his listeners could have sworn a mob of 'shoe-polishers, customs spies, seamen ... coalmen, washerwomen ... herring packers, tailors and bird-catchers' had burst into the next room.{{sfn|Britten Austin|1967|p=42}}}}

In 1790, the [[Swedish Academy]] awarded Bellman its annual Lundblad prize of 50 [[Swedish riksdaler|Riksdaler]] for the most interesting piece of literature of the year. Although ''Fredman's Epistles'' was neither exactly literature as understood by the academy, nor meeting the standards of elegant taste, the poet and critic [[Johan Henric Kellgren]] and the King ensured that Bellman won the prize.{{sfn|Britten Austin|1967|p=163}}

=== Later life ===
[[File:Bellmanskällan 2012bb.jpg|thumb|upright|Bronze memorial medallion of Bellman by Sergel]]

After the [[Gustav III of Sweden#Assassination|assassination of the King]] at the [[Royal Swedish Opera#The Gustavian Opera|Stockholm opera]] in 1792, support for the liberal arts was withdrawn. Bellman, already in poor health from alcoholism, went into decline, drinking increasingly heavily. His drinking very likely contributed to his [[gout]], which troubled him badly in 1790. He also caught [[tuberculosis]]: the disease had already killed his mother, and by the winter of 1792, he was seriously ill.{{sfn|Britten Austin|1967|pp=164–166}}

As well as being ill, he was imprisoned—after struggling with debts and haunted by the threat of ruin and imprisonment all his life—"for a wretched[ly small] debt of 150 [[Swedish riksdaler|Rdr]]". The rumour was that a former Customs colleague, E. G. Nobelius, had had his advances to Louise Bellman rejected, and in revenge had sued Bellman for the debt, knowing he was penniless: he owed a total of almost 4,000 Riksdaler.{{sfn|Britten Austin|1967|pp=168–170}} On 11 February 1795, he died in his sleep in his house in Gamla Kungsholmsbrogatan. He was buried in Klara churchyard with no gravestone, its location now unknown. The Swedish Academy belatedly placed a memorial in the churchyard in 1851, complete with a bronze medallion by [[Johan Tobias Sergel]].{{sfn|Britten Austin|1967|pp=172–173}}