SOURCE: Brantly, Susan. “The Stylistic Legacy of Religious Literature in Pär Lagerkvist's Poetry.” Scandinavica 22, no. 1 (May 1983): 47-68.

In the following essay, Brantly explores the religious influences on Lagerkvist's poetry.

The question of literary influence is a popular but problematic topic within literary studies. Any given literary work is the product of numerous outside influences, the tracing of which is an impossible task of questionable utility. Frederik Böök has described these outside influences upon a poet's labours as, ‘Råmaterialet, hvilket af diktaren präglas med hans egna upplefvelser och formas efter hans eget väsen; en lyrisk dikt kan trots otaliga “förebilder” vara i högsta måtto originell.’¹ Indeed, a frequently encountered danger in influence studies is that once connections with eminent literary models have been drawn, the original element in a given work may be easily overshadowed and neglected. A further complication in...