Schildt, Runar

(1888-1925)

   A Finland-Swedish short story writer and dramatist, Schildt had family ties both to the nobility and to the rural parts of Swedish-speaking Finland. He belonged to a group of artists and intellectuals referred to as the "idlers" of Finland-Swedish literature; this upper-class group cultivated a style of disillusionment, skepticism, and irony coupled with a pessimistic outlook. Schildt is considered the outstanding writer in this group, as well as one of the greatest writers in Finland-Swedish literature.

   Schildt produced novellas and short stories for a scant eight years, from 1912 to 1920. The stories in his first two collections, Den segrande Eros (1912; Victorious Eros) and Asmodeus och de tretton sjalarna (1915; Asmodeus and the 13 Souls), are informed by the general outlook on life common among the "idlers." For example, in the latter collection, the devil Asmodeus has made a bet that he can bag 13 souls during a three-day visit to Helsinki; this structural device allows Schildt to provide a cross-section of life in Finland's capital. The stories in Regnbagen (1916; The Rainbow) and Ronnbruden och Profningens dag (1917; The Bride of the Mountain Ash and Testing Day) are set in the Finnish countryside. In "Ronnbruden" (The Bride of the Mountain Ash) a young woman has been married to a tree through a curse.

   The volume Perdita och andra noveller (1918; Perdita and Other Stories) contains Schildt's finest short story, "Den svagare" (The Weaker One), which details a man's reaction when he discovers that his wife has committed adultery. He would like to leave her but is too weak, and he rationalizes his behavior by concluding that his life would be worthless without her. Other prose works are the short story collection Hemkomsten (1918; The Homecoming) and the novella Armas Fager (1920), which offers a portrait of an older man in both physical and social decline. In one of the stories in Schildt's final short story collection, Haxskogen (1920; The Witch Forest), the protagonist is a novelist who, terrified by the fact that he has lost his creativity, finds that a disappointment in love brings it back to him so that he is able to finish the book he is writing.

   Schildt also wrote the short drama Galgmannen: En midvintersaga (1922; tr. The Gallows Man: A Midwinter Tale) and the full-length play Den stora rollen (1923; The Great Role), both ofwhich did very well on stage. The play Lyckoriddaren (1923; The Fortune Hunter), however, was rather unsuccessful. Schildt committed suicide in 1925.

   See also Theater.