Visan som gåva. Olle Adolphsons litterära konstnärskap

Olle Adolphson (1934-2004) was a well-known Swedish songwriter, poet and singer who was also a composer and an artist. Many of Olle Adolphson´s songs are considered as classics in their genre. He made his debut 1956 with a collection of poetry and songs and the same year he also started his career as singer and song-writer. My aim in this study is to uncover and analyse the artistic complexity of his texts and to demonstrate how skilfully he made use of the rhythmic and musical properties of language in order to convey feelings and moods. I also attempt to show the character of gift inherent in Olle Adolphson´s songs and texts. They are addressed and offered to the listener and the reader as appeals for human fellowship. The six chapters of my thesis are organised according to a chronological as well as thematic principle. In the first chapter I analyse the poems of Adolphson´s first collection in order to uncover his ambitions as a budding poet and songwriter and to indicate his affinities with the Romantic 1950s. The second chapter deals with Olle Adolphson´s years as cabaret artist and singer when his songs were modified so as to make it possible for him to meet a larger public on intimate terms. The third chapter is devoted to Adolphson´s technique of musical parody. The analyses throw new light on the close union of text and music. The fourth chapter describes the period after the cabaret era - rhythmization as means to mitigate desperation and angst forms one part, another shows Adolphson´s concern for groups in society without influence, especially the feelings of elderly and children. The fifth chapter deals with Folia, a volume of songs and poems published in 1983. Adolphson´s texts concerning love and human relationships now reflect a lack of permanence.A cycle of ecphrastic poems and songs written for a play are also among the analysed texts. The sixth chapter is devoted to the 1990s and mainly deals with lyrics from a contemporary CD in combination with a film about Occitania that Adolphson made for Swedish television. Olle Adolphson´s songs and poems form aesthetic and ethic gifts requiring the listener´s and the reader´s attention for their full effect.