ATTERBOM, PER DANIEL AMADEUS (1 ), Swedish poet, son of a country parson, was born in the province of Ostergotland. He studied in the university of Uppsala (1805-15) and became professor of philosophy there in 1828, and of aes thetics and literature in 1835. He was the first great poet of the romantic movement which was to revolutionize Swedish literature.
In 1807 he founded at Uppsala an artistic society, the Aurora League, whose first newspaper, Poly f em, was a crude effort, soon abandoned ; but in 181 o there began to appear a journal, Fos f oros, edited by Atterbom, which lasted for three years and found a place in classic Swedish literature. It consisted of poetry and aesthetico polemical essays ; it introduced the study of the new Romantic school of Germany, and formed a vehicle for the early works, not of Atterbom only, but of Hammerski51d, Dahlgren, Palmblad and others. Later, the members of the Aurora League established the Poetisk Kalender (I 812-2 2 ), in which their poems appeared, and a new critical organ, Svensk Litteraturtidning Of Atterbom's independent works, the most celebrated is Lvcksa lighetens 0 (The Fortunate Island), a romantic drama published in 1824. Previously he had published a cycle of lyrics, Blommorna (The Flowers) , of a mystical character somewhat in the manner of Novalis. Of a dramatized fairy tale, Fagel bla (The Blue Bird), only a frag ment, which is among the most exquisite of his writings, is preserved. His Svenska Siare och skalder (1841-55, supplement, 1864) , a series of biographies of Swedish poets and men of letters, forms a history of Swedish letters down to the end of the "classical" period. Atter bom's works were collected (13 vols., Orebro) in 1854-7o.