page_title: Fredmans epistlar
section_title: Rococo theme
hierarchical_section_title: Fredmans epistlar / Rococo theme
caption_attribution_description: English: A splendid dinner, by Johan Tobias Sergel. Svenska: En strålande middag, av Johan Tobias Sergel.
context_page_description: Fredmans epistlar is a collection of 82 poems set to music by Carl Michael Bellman, a major figure in Swedish 18th century song. Though first published in 1790, it was created over a period of twenty years from 1768 onwards. A companion volume, Fredmans sånger was published the following year.
  The Epistles vary widely in style and effect, from Rococo-themed pastorale with a cast of gods and demigods from classical antiquity to laments for the effects of Brännvin-drinking, tavern-scenes, and apparent improvisations. The lyrics, based on the lives of Bellman's contemporaries in Gustavian-age Sweden, describe a gallery of fictional and semi-fictional characters and events taking place in Stockholm. Jean Fredman, an alcoholic former watchmaker, is the central character and fictional narrator. The "soliloquy" of Epistle 23, a description of Fredman lying drunk in the gutter and then recovering in the Crawl-In Tavern, was described by Oscar Levertin as "the to-be-or-not-to-be of Swedish literature". Ulla Winblad, based on one of Bellman's friends, is the chief of the fictional "nymphs".
context_section_description: Many of the Epistles have a Rococo theme, especially the pastorale pieces with a cast of gods and demigods from classical mythology. Thus,  Epistle 25, "Blåsen nu alla (All blow now!)", a short crossing of the Stockholm waterway to Djurgården, is peopled with billowing waves, thunder, Venus, Neptune, tritons, postillions, angels, dolphins, zephyrs "and Paphos's whole might", as well as water-nymphs splashing about the "nymph" – in other words, Ulla Winblad.
  The principal figures, given that the Epistles focus on drinking and its effects, along with "nymphs", are Bacchus and Venus / Fröja, but the cast is wider, including:
  Amaryllis – a nymph of the countryside (from Virgil's Eclogues)
  Bacchus – god of wine and drinking
  Charon – the ferryman of Hades, carrying souls to the place of the dead
  Chloris / Flora – the nymph or goddess of springtime, flowers and growth
  Clotho – one of the three fates, spinning the thread of human life (which is suddenly cut off)
  Cupid / Astrild – god of desire and erotic love, Astrild being a late Nordic invention
  Jupiter/Jofur – king of the gods on Mount Olympus, god of thunder
  Morpheus – god of sleep
  Neptune – god of the sea, accompanying the birth of Venus from the waves
  Nymph – a (beautiful) female nature deity
  Pan – god of wildness and rough countryside
  Themis – Titaness of divine law and justice
  Triton – messenger of the sea, accompanying Neptune
  Venus / Fröja / Aphrodite at Paphos – goddesses of love
caption: "A noisy company". Wash drawing by Johan Tobias Sergel (1740–1814)
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