To tell the world

Tell about the whole world, in all genres - and preferably in chronological order! This call is the starting point for the colossal narrative project, which was titled Törnrosen's book and had the most motley figure of Swedish romanticism, Carl Jonas Love Almqvist, as its mastermind. The work is a framework narrative without parallel in the history of literature. It was published 1833-1851 in two different series in a total of 17 volumes and came to rhyme short prose, novels, poetry, music, edifying writings as well as political and poetic essays. In Törnrosen's book, the texts were collected, performed and discussed by a fictional gallery of characters, whose greatest energy comes from the negotiations between the eccentric nobleman, Mr. Hugo with a penchant for the Whole, and the demonic and evasive poet, Richard Furumo.

The fictional project revolves around the possibilities of telling and explaining the entire world from end to end, and the entire work thus becomes an ongoing discussion and exploration of the ability of the various art forms and genres to capture the truth about the world.

Telling the World is the first comprehensive study of Törnrosen's book as a whole. It grasps the relationship between the frame and the embedded texts and discusses the different functions of the frame in the whole. It also involves an investigation of the encounter between non-poetic and poetic intentionalities, between irony and seriousness, the pursuit of wholeness and fragment aesthetics and between the various art forms.