Gunnar Wennerberg

Wennerberg was remarkable in several ways, handsome in face and tall in figure, with a finely trained singing voice, and brilliant in wit and conversation.

The success of these remarkable productions, masterpieces in two arts, was overwhelming: they presented an epitome of all that was most unusual and most attractive in the curious university life of Sweden.

[1] Wennerberg succeeded Christian Eric Fahlcrantz in 1866 as one of the eighteen of the Swedish Academy, and in 1870 became minister of education and ecclesiastical affairs in the cabinet of Axel Gustaf Adlercreutz, upon the fall of which in 1875 he retired for a time into private life.

[1] Wennerberg preserved his superb appearance in advanced old age, and he died, after a very short illness, on 24 August 1901, at Läckö Castle, where he was visiting his brother-in-law, Count Axel Rudenschöld.

His poems, to which their musical accompaniment is almost essential, have not ceased, in half a century, to be universally pleasing to Swedish ears; outside Sweden it would be difficult to make their peculiarly local charm intelligible.