- Ragnhild Jølsen
Infobox Writer
name = Ragnhild Jølsen
birthdate = birth date|1875|3|29
birthplace =Enebakk ,Norway
deathdate = death date and age|1908|1|28|1875|3|28
deathplace = Enebakk, Norway
occupation =author
nationality = Norwegian
period = 1903–1908Ragnhild Theodora Jølsen (28 March 1875 ndash 28 January 1908) was a Norwegian author, born in
Enebakk ,Akershus . Oral traditions, in particular from Enebakk, is a recurring theme in her works.Ragnhild Jølsen grew up on the large farm "Ekeberg" in
Enebakk . She moved toKristiania in 1889 after the family had been hit hard financially. Her father, Holm Jølsen was an early industrial pioneer and ran Norway's third largestmatch factory in the Ekeberg Valley between 1866 and 1886. Ragnhild Jølsen moved back to Enebakk in 1896.Jølsen was seen as a controversial author in a period of great change, as society transformed itself from the old ways founded on small farming communities into the modern industrial society. Short, chopped-up sentences were typical of her
writing style , almost maniacally sounding, as in Biblical form, and her depictions always moved in the intersection between dream and reality.Having received a grant she traveled to
Rome in November 1906 and returned to Enebakk in July 1907. There she began an affair with the married Norwegian painterCarl Dørnberger .Jølsen died in Januar 1908, allegedly having taken an overdose of sleeping powder. She left for posterity some of
Norwegian literature 's most forceful depictions of agony-manifesting women. Both in her private life and as a writer she was an outsider, and during most of her short life she lived the life of a bohemian. Add to that her books which shocked her contemporaries with their open depictions of the sex lives and drives of women which caused some reviewers to assert that it had to be a man and not a woman who had written them.For most of the period since her death she has wrongly been portrayed in Norway as a representative of a contemporary class of homestead writers, when in fact only her short story collection "Brukshistorier" ("Factory Tales") belongs to this genre. The quite different style which characterizes the bulk of her novels is the meandering motifs of
art noveau and a consistent fatalisticdecadence which depicts itself in her intense and admirable authorship.Jens Bjørneboe has partially depicted her life in the biographical novel "Drømmen og Hjulet" (1964, "The Dream and the Wheel"). Other biographies are Antonie Tiberg's "Ragnhild Jølsen i liv og digning" (1909, "Ragnhild Jølsen in Life and Poetry"), Øivind Ribsskog's "Ragnhild Jølsens saga" (1976), Kari Christensen's "Portrett på mørk treplate" (1989, "Portrait on a Dark Wooden Surface") andHåkon Tysdal 's "Fra Ign til Fontana di Trevi - en reise gjennom Ragnhild Jølsens siste leveår" (2008. "From Ign to Fontana di Trevi - a Journey Through the Last Years of Ragnhild Jølsen's Life"). A new biography written byArnhild Skre is being published byAschehoug in the autumn of 2008. The rock group "Moys " has composed music to go along with Ragnhild Jølsen's texts ibn the album "Måneskinn og tåke" ("Moonlight and Mist") due to be released in October 2008.In 2008 Ragnhild Jølsen's home municipality,
Enebakk , organized events to commemorate the 100 years since her death.Bibliography
* " [http://www.dokpro.uio.no/cgi-bin/litteratur/innholdprod.cgi?tabell=joelsen&udel=&del=&verk=1#her Ve's mor] " (1903)
* " [http://www.dokpro.uio.no/cgi-bin/litteratur/innholdprod.cgi?tabell=joelsen&udel=&del=&verk=2#her Rikka Gan] " (1904)
* " [http://www.dokpro.uio.no/cgi-bin/litteratur/innholdprod.cgi?tabell=joelsen&udel=&del=&verk=3#her Fernanda Mona] " (1905)
* " [http://www.dokpro.uio.no/cgi-bin/litteratur/innholdprod.cgi?tabell=joelsen&udel=&del=&verk=4#her Hollases Krønike] " (1906)
* " [http://www.dokpro.uio.no/cgi-bin/litteratur/innholdprod.cgi?tabell=joelsen&udel=&del=&verk=5#her Brukshistorier] " (1907)
* " [http://www.dokpro.uio.no/cgi-bin/litteratur/innholdprod.cgi?tabell=joelsen&udel=&del=&verk=6#her Efterlatte arbeider] " (1908)External links
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