Ulla Winblad

A frequent theme is the demimonde, with Fredman's cheerfully drunk Order of Bacchus,[6] a loose company of ragged men who favour strong drink and prostitutes.

At the same time as depicting this realist side of life, Bellman creates a rococo picture, full of classical allusion, following the French post-Baroque poets.

[2][7] Ulla Winblad remains a popular character in Sweden and other countries, where Bellman's songs continue to be performed, both directly and adapted into theatre productions.

[15] It begins with rococo "angels, dolphins, zephyrs and the whole might of Paphos" (compare Boucher's Birth of Venus) and musical flourishes on the horn ("Corno") and ends with Ulla as "my nymph" and the sentiment "May love come into our lives".

[16] Bellman worked up the silk cape incident into the rococo Epistle 28, I går såg jag ditt barn, min Fröja, where Fredman sees a "goddess", elegantly dressed, with illegally flounced and frilled petticoats.

"[17] Edvard Matz, author of a book about Carl Michael Bellman's women, calls Ulla "one of the really great female figures in Swedish literature".

[18] Fredman's Epistles are distinctive in combining realism - drink, poverty, gambling, prostitution, old age - with elegant mythological rococo flourishes, enabling Bellman to achieve both comic and elegiac effects.

Britten Austin cites the Swedish critic Nils Afzelius [sv]:[18] "Several of the most personal poems are staged with a heavy overlay of classical mythology ...

It is as if a curtain with a whole rococo world of gods and goddesses on rosy clouds ... were suddenly raised, revealing a tavern-interior with shaky chairs, spilled and shattered glasses, staggering clients and sluttish barmaids [N.

Epistle 71, in Britten Austin's words "the apogee, perhaps, of all that is typically bellmansk" evokes the Swedish countryside at Djurgården in summertime, as Bellman imagines riding out of town and finding Ulla at her window.

It begins[21][22] The scholar of Swedish literature Lars Lönnroth writes that the song is a serenade, originally a profession of love set to the strings of a guitar outside the beloved's window of an evening.