SOURCE: "Orfeus and the Maenads: Two Modes of Ecstatic Discourse in Stagnelius's Bacchanterna," in Scandinavian Studies, Vol. 64, No. 1, Winter, 1992, pp. 26-52.

In the following essay discussing Stagnelius' Bacchanterna, Toepfer suggests that the poet used tensions between Classicism and Romanticism to probe the relationship between feeling and language.

In 1822, a year before his death, Erik Johan Stagnelius (1793-1823) completed a fascinating one-act tragedy, Bacchanterna eller Fanatismen.¹ But despite the beauty of its language, the complexity of its thematic concerns, the intensity of its dramatic effects, and the bizarre grandeur of its ambitions, the play hardly enjoys the acknowledgement it deserves in discussions of the romantic contribution to drama and theater. That Stagnelius wrote in Swedish may explain in part the lack of international appreciation for his achievement. If this explanation is not entirely convincing, it is because one can always point to Strindberg, Ingmar Bergman, or Pär Lagerqvist...