"Skatter af känslan – tecken af oskulden." Om sentimentalitet och litterär kommunikation. Exemplet Granbergs Enslighetsälskaren

Otto Fischer, ”Skatter af känslan – tecken af oskulden”. Om sentimentalitet och litterär kommu­nikation. Exemplet Granbergs Enslighetsälskaren. (”Treasures of emotion – signs of innocence”:On Sentimentality and Literary Communication in Granberg’s Enslighetsälskaren.) The object of this study is the lesser known novel Enslighetsälskaren (roughly: “The Lover of Solitude”) by P. A. Granberg, published in 1800. The novel is one of few Swedish exponents of sentimental fiction, and presents an abundance of themes well known from European sentimental literature in a concentrated, and perhaps rather undigested, form. As such, it is a rewarding object for the study of sentimental literary communication in the late 18th and early 19th century. In my study, I try to demonstrate how a thematic of communication, revolving around the poles voice and writing, presence and absence, is closely connected to a complex of themes concerning gender, family, sexual conduct and so forth. Ultimately, it becomes apparent that the main theme of the novel is communication as such, and that the guiding principle of this communication is the semiotics of the fetish. Granberg’s novel is also one of the few examples of epistolary fiction in Sweden during the period, and in this study I try to show how this particular form of fiction interacts with the principal theme of the novel