Editing Carl Michael Bellman (section)

== Reception ==
[[File:Bellman statue Hasselbacken 1.jpg|thumb|upright|Statue of Bellman by [[:sv:Alfred Nyström|Alfred Nyström]], 1872, in Stockholm's [[Djurgården]]]]

King [[Gustav III]] called Bellman "''Il signor improvisatore''" (The master improviser).<ref name=Kleveland6 />

Bellman has been compared with poets and musicians as diverse as [[William Shakespeare|Shakespeare]]{{sfn|Hägg|1996|p=149}} and [[Ludwig van Beethoven|Beethoven]].{{sfn|Hassler|1989|p=6}} [[Åse Kleveland]] notes that he has been called "Swedish poetry's [[Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart|Mozart]], and [[William Hogarth|Hogarth]]", observing that

{{blockquote|The comparison with Hogarth was no accident. Like the English portrait painter, Bellman drew detailed pictures of his time in his songs, not so much of life at court as of ordinary people's everyday.<ref name=Kleveland6>{{harvnb|Kleveland|Ehrén|1984|p=6}}</ref>}}

[[Paul Britten Austin]] says instead simply that:{{sfn|Britten Austin|1967|p=11}}

{{blockquote|Bellman is unique among great poets, I think, in that virtually his entire opus is conceived to music. Other poets, of course, notably our Elizabethans, have written songs. But song was only one branch of their art. They did not leave behind, as Bellman did, a great musical-literary work nor paint in words and music a canvas of their age. Nor are their songs dramatic.{{sfn|Britten Austin|1967|p=11}}}}