Text-critical publication of Olof von Dalin's Poetry 1751-1761

The project application concerns the Swedish Literature Society's (SVS) publication of four volumes in the series Olof von Dalin's Collected Writings. The first volume of this text-critical edition was published in 2008 and so far nine volumes have been published: Poetry (up to and including 1750), Drama and Letters. The language pioneer Dalin has a unique position in Swedish literary history and more than 2 500 of his poems have been preserved. The poems testify to his remarkable skill in a variety of poetic genres and contexts, whether they are tributes to the royal family, funerals, politics, religion, philosophy, satire or simply nonsense. Many of his lyrics both reflected and developed a table or drinking song tradition, the existence of which has previously received little scholarly attention. Co-editor James Massengale's discovery that a significant proportion of Dalin's poems were performed as songs has already provided a new perspective on Dalin and his poetry. The present application concerns volumes I:4-I:5 (text) and II:4-II:5 (commentary), containing poems from 1751 to 1761. The commentary presents a number of textual witnesses, variant readings, glosses and a musical commentary. The editors are Dr. Ingemar Carlsson, Prof. em. James Massengale, Gun Carlsson and Dr. Barbro Ståhle Sjönell, who have also published the already published volumes of Dalin's Collected Writings. SVS was founded in 1907 and aims to publish text-critical, i.e. scientific, editions of older Swedish fiction.