"'Se kvinnorna'. Marika Stiernstedt, Hjalmar Söderberg and the gender-political context at the beginning of the 20th century"

This study discusses the concept of intertextuality by examining Martin Bircks ungdom (1901) and Doktor Glas (1906) by Hjalmar Söderberg and Lilas äktenskap (1910) by Marika Stiernstedt in the context of early 20th century gender-political discussion. Stiernstedt and Söderberg raise questions about sex, gender, love, sexuality and morality against a backdrop of works such as Lifslinjer I (1903) by Ellen Key, Ny kärlek. En bok för mogna andar (1902) by Elisabeth Dauthenday (1902) and to some extent Fyra böcker om Kristi efterföljelse (1894) by Thomas a Kempis. Stiernstedt and Söderberg show in their literary work that the contemporary gender-political discussion was characterized by security and perplexity. The female protagonists in their novels seem to be trapped in what Birgitta Holm calls “the no man's land of feminine desire", that is, in a borderland between an increasingly loosened Victorian ideal woman and an even more vague idea of the New Woman. However, although these three women live under entirely different conditions, they can still be regarded as forerunners to the New Woman.