Hjalmar Bergman

Bergman, Hjalmar Frederik (1883–1931), Swedish dramatist and novelist, one of the most influential in the Swedish theatre after the death of Strindberg, who, with Maeterlinck and Ibsen, had a great influence on Bergman's early work. He first came into prominence with two one-act ‘Marionette Plays’ produced in 1917—Dödens Arlekin and the exquisite psychological tragedy Herr Sleeman kommen. Other plays included Ett Experiment (1918) and Vavaren i Bagdad (The Weaver of Bagdad), published in 1923, which he wrote after completing a translation of Sir Richard Burton's One Thousand and One Nights. He also adapted two of his own regional novels. Of his later plays, in which comedy replaced the tragic mood of his earlier work, the best known are Swedenhjelms (1925), a realistic comedy about the eccentric family of a Nobel Prize-winner, seen at the Birmingham Repertory Theatre in 1960 as The Family First, and Patrasket (1928), a Jewish folk comedy.

Hjalmar Bergman , 1883-1931, Swedish novelist, dramatist, and short-story writer. A popular and prolific writer, Bergman wrote from the background of an unhappy childhood and chronic mental depression. His works are characterized by insight into the ambivalence of human emotions. Bergman's individual style combines a basically pessimistic view with ironic humor, as in the play Swedenhielms [the Swedenhielm family] (1925) and the novels God's Orchid (1919, tr. 1924) and The Head of the Firm (1924, tr. 1936).

Bibliography: See his Four Plays (tr. 1968); study by E. H. Linder (1975).