“The Song of the Shirt” Replanted: Thomas Hood’s Poem in a Nordic Context

Thomas Hood’s poem “The Song of the Shirt” was an immediate success when first published in Punch in 1843. Previous research has shown how the poem responded to the mid-nineteenth-century debate concerning the working situation of needlewomen. The ways in which this hugely popular poem was recontextualised in translation have, however, received surprisingly little attention. Arguing that British nineteenth-century social-reform texts were appropriated over time and via translation by socio-political interests whose agenda reached far beyond the aims of the original authors of these texts, the present article traces the way in which Hood’s poem spread through Europe and beyond. With a particular focus on the role that “The Song of the Shirt” played in Sweden, the article demonstrates how the poem transitioned from its initial expression of compassion to being employed by the Swedish early Socialist movement several decades later.