Ljuva karneval!

Carl Michael Bellman is the central figure in Swedish song, known principally for his 1790 Fredman's Epistles and his 1791 Fredman's Songs. Fredman's epistles is a collection of 82 poems set to music; it depicts everything from Rococo-themed pastorale with a cast of gods and demigods from classical antiquity to laments for the effects of Brännvin-drinking, tavern-scenes, and apparent improvisations. The lyrics, based on the lives of Bellman's contemporaries in Gustavian-age Sweden, describe a gallery of fictional and semi-fictional characters and events in Stockholm. Jean Fredman, an alcoholic former watchmaker, is the central character and fictional narrator. He played the cittern, accompanying himself as he performed his songs at the royal court.[1][2]

Lars Lönnroth is a Swedish literary scholar who has studied Bellman for over 40 years. He has been a professor at the University of California Berkeley, the University of Aalborg and the University of Gothenburg.[3]

Reviewing Ljuva karneval! for Gotlands Allehanda, Inger Dahlman wrote that Lönnroth was dispelling the dominant 200 year old myth created by Johan Henric Kellgren that Bellman was always speaking for himself in Fredman's Epistles, whereas the reverse was the case, he uninterruptedly played carefully-crafted roles. Dahlman comments that Lönnroth appears to be irritated by people who imagine they can write biographies of Bellman from his own writings, and that he is certainly right about that; but that all the same, one can still glimpse a "careless, friendly, proud, ingenious and tormented man" behind the many masks.[6]

Lönnroth shows that Carl Michael Bellman was above all an entertainer, playing many roles.[6] Painting of Bellman entertaining King Gustav III, by Albert Edelfelt, 1884

Anders Cullhed, writing in Dagens Nyheter, notes that Bellman was not just a poet but a skilled mimic and bard, and that in the book, Lönnroth brings to life Bellman as a performance artist. Cullhed calls it remarkable that a "small land on Europe's cultural periphery" should have so many fine poets, of whom Bellman was the greatest; only Gunnar Ekelöf outgrew his boundaries in a comparable way, and scholars had struggled to capture Bellman's chameleon-like nature. In his view, Lönnroth finally brings to light Bellman's experimental, genre-crossing creativity, in a book that is "a pleasure to read" and clearly the product of decades of research.[7]

Torkel Stålmarck writes in Samlaren that Lönnroth had contributed to Bellman research since the 1960s. In his view, the "carnival" of the title sums up the book's view of Bellman's life and times, a constant masquerade, central to his art, a one-man exhibition "where the bard performs a kind of musical comedy for the audience with scenes depicting both 'high' and 'low' characters".[8] Stålmarck states that Fredmans Epistles rightly take a central place in the book, but that Bellman's lesser-known works, like Bacchi Tempel, are covered, offering the reader something new and surprising.[8]

Per Olsen, reviewing the book for the Danish Bellman Society, calls it an ambitious, synoptic, and successful decoding of the whole of Bellman's varied output, its genres, themes, language and style.[9] Olsen notes that the title alludes to an early poem by Bellman from 1763, containing the lines "Du liufva carnaval,/Du lindrar sorg og kval" (You sweet carnival, you heal sorrow and pain), and "Vår värld är en maskrad,/Där mången synes glad,/Men gråter under masken…" (Our world is a masked ball, where many look happy, but are crying under their masks).[9]

Johan Stenström, reviewing the book for Svenska Dagbladet, wrote that Lönnroth's book on the national bard would become the standard reference for understanding Bellman's poetry.[10]

• Lönnroth, Lars (2005). Ljuva karneval! : om Carl Michael Bellmans diktning (in Swedish). Stockholm: Albert Bonniers Förlag. ISBN 978-91-0-057245-7. OCLC 61881374.