En ton från himmelen: En studie om Linnea Hofgren och mystikernas modersmål.
Melody from heaven: A study on Linnea Hofgren and the native tongue of the mystics.
Author
Summary, in English
Linnea Hofgren (1868-1921) is an unknown name to most people. She was too marked by
her physical sickness to work, but serving her days as a songwriter and pray-er, she found a
spiritual home in the mystic network Flodbergskretsen, that gathered in Stockholm around
the beginning of the 1900s. This essay aims to bring attention to the story of a bed-bound
Christian with a deep human longing, and in particular to investigate the relationship
between experiences of mystic revelations and language. How does Linnea Hofgren find a
language that makes her experiences available to others, at the same time as it still
conceals them? By approaching this essay's primary source material, Hofgren's
unpublished autobiographies, with a hermeneutic method, the review leads to a discussion
remarking on the variations of form, content and use of differing lingustic tools in the text.
Based on the results it is suggested that Linnea Hofgren through a combination of
everyday language typical of the period, a mystic-pietistic vocabulary inherited from
predecessors throughout the centuries, poetic excesses, prayer, Bible references, imagery
and silence finds her way to express her story.
her physical sickness to work, but serving her days as a songwriter and pray-er, she found a
spiritual home in the mystic network Flodbergskretsen, that gathered in Stockholm around
the beginning of the 1900s. This essay aims to bring attention to the story of a bed-bound
Christian with a deep human longing, and in particular to investigate the relationship
between experiences of mystic revelations and language. How does Linnea Hofgren find a
language that makes her experiences available to others, at the same time as it still
conceals them? By approaching this essay's primary source material, Hofgren's
unpublished autobiographies, with a hermeneutic method, the review leads to a discussion
remarking on the variations of form, content and use of differing lingustic tools in the text.
Based on the results it is suggested that Linnea Hofgren through a combination of
everyday language typical of the period, a mystic-pietistic vocabulary inherited from
predecessors throughout the centuries, poetic excesses, prayer, Bible references, imagery
and silence finds her way to express her story.
Department/s
Publishing year
2015
Language
Swedish
Full text
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Document type
Student publication for Master's degree (one year)
Topic
- Philosophy and Religion
Keywords
- Flodbergskretsen
- Linnea Hofgren
- kvinnliga självbiografier.
- Mechthild av Magdeburg
- Julian av Norwich
- KFUK
- mystikt språk
- kvietism
- Hjalmar Ekström
- svenska mystiker
- Henrik Schager
Supervisor
- Anders Jarlert (Professor)