Med fjädern från en kerubs vinge : Studenten Erland Hofstens passionsepos "Ett Rimm" (1677). Textutgåva med inledning och förklaringar

Two days after Easter 1677 the Uppsala student Erland Hofsten (1651-1717) delivered a versified oration on the Passion to his compatriots from the region of Värmland in the west of Sweden. The poem of 656 alexandrine verses was written in the vernacular, and is an early Swedish example of the important genre of epics on the death and resurrection of Christ. The manuscript is now printed for the first time. In the introduction the author, who would become a school-teacher and vicar, is presented and put into his academic-ecclesiastical social setting. The text of the oration is introduced and contextualized. Although the literary merits might be few, the poem is an interesting early instance of Swedish in an academic setting. It tries to cope with principles for metrical writing in the vernacular and, most importantly, it is an unusual piece of evidence of the early formation of a literary culture in the student-organized Uppsala “nations”, which were institutionalized and made compulsory in the 1660’s