Introducing Italy , 1948 – 1968 : the importance of symbolic capital and position of literary mediators in the semiperiphery

This study examines the impact of two literary mediators – Martha Larsson and Anders Österling – both of whom introduced Italian literature in Sweden during the second half of the 20th century. These mediators are compared to each other with regard to their social background, habitus and position in the literary field, all elements included in their symbolic capital. By mapping out which literary texts and authors they actually introduced in the period 1948–1968, with special attention given to crucial factors such as genre and gender, the results show that their selections had different characters. While Larsson introduced contemporary authors who were highly regarded in Italy at the time, and more closely related to what Bourdieu (1993) described as the autonomous pole, Österling mainly focused on authors closer to the heteronomous pole. Following Broomans’ (2009) six-phase model of cultural transfer, the study analyzes whether their introductions had a direct effect on publication, and what strategies they used in order to introduce new Italian authorships to a Swedish audience. Drawing upon Bourdieu and (1990) and Casanova (2002), it is also argued that both mediators introduced Italian literature in order to gain symbolic capital and strengthen their positions in the Swedish literary field.


Introduction
An in-depth analysis regarding the transnational circulation of literature needs to take several factors into account, which, not least of all, are the mediators themselves.In recent years, scholars have argued for a more "humanized" direction for translation studies (cf.Pym 2009).However, these studies almost exclusively recognize the efforts of translators, while the agents engaged in other forms of literary mediation tend to be neglected.In this article, the purpose is to analyze two mediators who introduced Italian literature in Sweden in the decades after World War II: Martha Larsson (1908Larsson ( -1993)), the foreign correspondent of the newspaper Svenska Dagbladet stationed in Rome during the years 1947-1981, 1 and the Swedish Academy's permanent secretary Anders Österling (1884-1981).The analysis is divided into two parts.In the first part Österling and Larsson will be introduced and compared to each other with regard to their social background, habitus, position in the literary field and symbolic capital.Following some recent studies that take into account sociological aspects, all these factors are considered as crucial to transnational literary circulation (cf.Casanova 2002, 1 She arrived at the Italian capital in December 1947 and left in April 1981.Tymoczko 2003, Gouanvic 2005, Wolf & Fukari 2007, Pym et al. 2006).The analysis will also test the hypothesis that mediators have something to gain for themselves by introducing foreign authors, as Bourdieu underscored already in 1990: Qui sont les découvreurs et quels intérêts ont-ils à découvrir ?Je sais bien que le mot "intérêt" choque.Mais je pense que celui qui s'approprie, en toute bonne foi, un auteur et s'en fait l'introducteur a des profits subjectifs tout à fait sublimés et sublimes, mais qui sont néanmoins déterminants pour comprendre qu'il fasse ce qu 'il fait (1990:3).
Moreover, since Larsson and Österling are often mentioned as those who introduced Italian literature to Swedish audiences, but without it really being specified what they actually introduced, the second part of the current study maps out which literary texts and authors they actually introduced in the period 1948-1968.This period has been chosen in order to conduct a comparison of their introductions, being it a period in which they both, despite their age difference, were very productive.This part of the analysis also draws upon Petra Broomans' six-phase model of cultural transfer (2011:10-14), in which introductions are included in the first phase, the discovery.This phase often involves a cultural transmittor trying to launch his or her own discovery after reading it in the original.The discovery is followed by a quarantinei.e. the time span before the book is translated and reaches the marketin which the cultural transmitter tries to get the work translated and/or published.According to Broomans, the quarantine phase, can last for "several years " (2011:12).The third phase in Broomans' model of the cultural transfer is the translation, which turns out to be a crucial step in the process: "When the introduction is not followed by a translation or another form of reception, the cultural transfer does not continue to the next phase and thus cannot be completed " (2011:12).For this reason it turns out to be important to examine whether the introductions of Österling and Larsson led to translations.2Following Casanova's model of the mediator's power to consecrate as a consequence of his or her position in the literary field (see chapter 3 below), the analysis will then consider the two mediator's selections and consecration strategies in relation to their prestige and positions in the Swedish literary field.

Österling's and Larsson's social background and habitus
A humanized perspective on cultural transfer stresses the importance of taking into consideration the mediators themselves, their habitus 3i.e. the system of dispositions that agents have incorporated during their lifetime forming the way they think, act and behave in different social circumstancesas well as their symbolic capital, which in the case of literary mediators is mainly regarded as the prestige they have obtained through their education, titles and position in the literary field.
Österling and Larsson were both poets originating from the Skåne region in the south of Sweden.They also shared a love of Italy. 4 Despite these outward similarities between the two literary mediators, however, there were vast differences in their social background.
The multi-talented Österling grew up in a wealthy bourgeois home, which provided him with excellent opportunities to choose between a career in academia, in the newspaper world, or as a writer. 5In a way, he chose all three occupations, despite knowing very early on in his life that he wanted to make his living writing poetry.He made his debut as a poet in 1904, the same year that he took the baccalaureate, with a collection of poems entitled Preludier.In 1948, the first year covered by the current study, Österling had already reached the respectable age of 64 years.He was then an established poet, critic, translator, member of the Swedish Academy (to which he had been elected in 1919) and its permanent secretary during the years 1941-1964.Österling's capacity for work was apparently immense: alongside the work in the Swedish Academy, his own literary production and translation activities, he often wrote three or four reviews a week and also compiled poetry anthologies for various publishing houses.He obviously had a good amount of literary prestige, which gave him a central position in Sweden's literary field.
There was, however, a weak point in Österling's impressive curriculum that concerned his own authorship.After a brilliant debut as a poetic prodigy, he was soon to be associated with an excessively idyllic and idealistic expression; his poetry became more and more perceived as beautifully rhymed verse without much substance.When modernism rolled into Sweden, he had, so to speak, ended up on the wrong train: his beautiful and evocative images of nature were exactly the kind of poetry that had become most heavily criticized by the young modernists.Österling and his contemporaries were losing the battle for what was considered to be good poetry, a battle that today is referred to as "the incomprehensibility debate" (Westerström 2013:353, my tr.).The negative attitude toward Österling's poetry is still current; for consciuos aiming at ends or an express mastery of the operations necessary in order to attain them" (Bourdieu 1993:5). 4In 1912, Österling wrote to Dagens Nyheter to offer his services as a correspondent; however, the newspaper rejected the offer on the basis that Rome was not a very important city to cover.Some decades later, though, the same position was offered to Larsson; she accepted and dedicated the remaining 33 years of her career to the service as a Swedish foreign correspondent in Rome for the Swedish newspaper Svenska Dagbladet. 5For a detailed review of Österling's life and works, see Jenny Westerström's (2013) biography in two volumes.
example, it is evident in the short and often disparaging lines with which he is mentioned in Swedish literary manuals 6 .Conversely, Österling retained his reputation as a translator and introducer of foreign literature, a view also reflected by Westerström when she points out that "Österling, to a higher degree than any other of his contemporary literary critics, had the outlook on Foreign Literature" (2013:192, my tr.).
As the permanent secretary of the Swedish Academy, Österling was always on the lookout for new talent, especially after having initiated the renewal that was supposed to find and reward the most innovative literature (cf.Espmark 2010).In addition, Österling had solid ties to high-prestige publishing houses such as Bonniers, as well as Natur & Kultur.All his own books were published at Bonniers, and the same publishers often consulted him as a translator, anthology editor and preface writer.During the 1950s, he began an intense collaboration with the dynamic Giacomo Oreglia and his publishing house, Italica.
Starting in 1905, Österling's habitus includes an almost lifelong interest in Italian literature.He was actually the one who, in the early 1900s, revived the dormant infatuation for Italy that had lain fallow during the period of realism in the second half of the 1800s, not least of all because of August Strindberg's condescending attitude to the country (Cornell 1935:4).Österling's relation to Italian literature had clearly a romantic, almost erotic, character about it. 7This did not prevent him, though, to express severe judgments about it.Not only does he claim that Italy's modern poetry must do away with "literary perfume useage" (1921:141, my tr.), but he even argues, as if this were a negative quality, that "Italy's modern poetry has its greatest weaknesses in the cosmopolitan susceptibility and the temptation to produce viable export literature, which can be read in Paris as well as in Milan" (1921:140-141, my tr.).With this view of Italian literature, it is not surprising that Österling would become the great advocate of the Italian realists who debuted in the 1930s and 1940s, and who would be translated into Swedish after the war.Due to Österling's central position in the Swedish literary field, his view on literature was normative, especially when it came to a subfield with a limited number of conoisseurs, such as Italian literature.
Martha Larsson came from a simpler background than Österling.She was born in 1908 in the countryside of Skåne as the daughter of farmers and entered the girls' secondary school and trade school in Lund.Thereafter, in 1929, she was employed as a typist, stenographer and correspondent at ASEA in Västerås.In 1931, Larsson went 6 See, for example, Staffan Bergsten's (2007:281-282) short lines on Österling in his study on the history of Swedish poetry. 7In Dagens gärning (1921), there is an essay entitled "Italian poets" from 1920 in which Österling describes the passion for Italy among the "Nordic poets" as a "romantic flirtation", albeit of a temporary nature, as "la bella Italia finds in every new moment new lovers", but there are "one or two who are so seriously interested, that he begins to study even her intelligence and character, not only her teint and velvet eyes" (1921:134, my tr.).
to Paris, where she remained until 1933, when she gained employment as a journalist at Svenska Dagbladet.The same year she also debuted as a poet in that same newspaper (Järtelius 2014:50).In 1947, Larsson became a correspondent in Rome, as the newspaper's first female employee responsible for a foreign section.Besides the reviews and introductions of Italian literature that will be analyzed in this study, Larsson mainly devoted herself to the covering of news.In the meantime, and under a number of signatures such as Martina Ell, Martell, Elle and Charlotta, she also wrote causeries, chronicles and other reflections of Italian culture.
While at Svenska Dagbladet, Larsson was also a poet and writer: in the 1940s, she published two collections of poetry and a short story collection at Bonniers, all of which were very well received by such critics as Staffan Björck and Olof Lagercrantz.In a heated debate, which in bourdieusian terms can be described as a struggle for power in the Swedish literary field, Per Erik Wahlund claimed that Larsson was one of "the writers that in the 1940's had been unjustly and furtively removed" and "while the representatives of the young modernistic poem cheered up each other to prominent posts, she had let her writing mature in splendid isolation" (Expressen 25 June 1948, my tr.).Similarly, in a study on Rut Hillarp and the modernism of the 1940s from a female perspective, Annelie Bränström Öhman (1999) recounts Larsson as one of the women writers who had been displaced by the male modernists.In 1964, Larsson published a new collection of poems, now at Norstedts, but her fifth and final volume, Fjärrkontakter, was published by a very small publisher, CETE, in 1980, 8 shortly before she left Italy and settled down with her sister on the family farm in southern Sweden.Among her posthumous papers in the archives at Lund University Library, there are several unpublished novels and poems of her own and those that were translated by her.
It seems, though, that Larsson in the 1940s had earned a good deal of literary prestige, but her promising career as a writer was threatened by the heavy male dominance in the Swedish book market and literary field.By linking gender to the study of the "translatorial habitus", which Daniel Simeoni has described as a "servitude volontaire" (1998:23), it is hardly surprising that the female translator for a long time remained invisible.But what about the introducers?Unlike translators and other cultural transmitters, 9 who often work behind the scenes, their introductions and 8 A letter from the publisher Åke Svensson, dated 28 December 1979, shows that Larsson herself, at least partially, paid for the publication of Fjärrkontakter.Svensson ensures her that: "Your financial contribution will not appear".The letter is located in the archive Martha Larssons efterlämnade papper at the library of the University of Lund.In addition, the letters from different publishers in which her manuscripts are kindly being rejected and the number of unpublished literary texts that are preserved in her archives suggest that Larsson in the last years of life struggled to stage a comeback as a writer. 9I here refer to Broomans' definition of the cultural transmitter: "A cultural transmitter basically works within a particular language and cultural area.She/he often takes on various roles in the field of cultural transmission: translator, reviewer, critic, journalist, literary historian, scholar, teacher librarian, reviews of foreign literature made them more visible.Does this mean that they were more independent, or were they also victims of what Broomans calls "the paradox of an active yet servile position" (2009:20)?These questions are crucial when it comes to examining the position in the literary field.

Positions in the literary field and symbolic capital
Fully adequate models for analyzing the position of the mediators in the literary field are so far lacking.Pascale Casanova's model of the actors' position turns out in practice to be most useful for analyzing translators, but I would argue that with an added component it can become a practical tool for analyzing introducers in the dynamics of the literary field as well.
According to Casanova, the position of the intermediaries in the literary field is of great importance with respect to consecrating foreign works (2002[2010]:299-302).In her model, there are three poles: at one pole, we find the ordinary mediators, who are basically invisible in the literary field.This can be a translator or an expert in a certain literature who provides other agents with information about literary news, but they lack entirely the power to consecrate works of fiction themselves and therefore need the support of other, more prestigious actors to succeed in their mediation.At the opposite pole are the consecrated, or charismatic consecrators, whose power to consecrate depends on how much they are already consecrated themselves.This group may consist of known writers, translators or other respected cultural figures for which it is enough to sign with their own name in order to consecrate a translation.At the third pole in Casanova's model, we find the institutional consecrators, who are able to consecrate in the name of an institution such as a university or an academy with high prestige.As a highly regarded translator tackles a writer, it can lead to the international recognition not only of that writer, but to a whole literary nation and vice versa: when a translator lacks the power to consecrate, other mediators with greater symbolic capital will be needed, for example, in the form of preface writers and critics.In these cases, the translation is only the first step in the consecration, whereupon the second intermediary must take over the mediation process.
Casanova's model has been mainly based on the translator's role, which becomes noticeable when it is applied to introducers.The model needs to be complemented with a fourth pole, a medial pole, where medial consecrators, intermediaries with access to mass media platforms, appear.In small populations, as in the case of the few Swedish agents focusing on Italian literature in the years 1948-1968, it should be recognized that some agents may find themselves at various poles simultaneously: a very famous translating writer can be a member of a prestigious institution, while also being a bookseller, collector, literary agent, scout, publisher, editor of a journal, writer, travel writer, or counsellor.Transmitting another national literature and its cultural context to one's own national literature and cultural context is the central issue in the work of a cultural transmitter (…)" (2009:2).literary critic.
One such person was undoubtely Österling: he was not only a famous writer and translator, but he was also a critic of several Swedish newspapers and magazines.He thus accumulated symbolic capital from three poles at the same time: the Swedish Academy made him the utmost institutional consecrator in Sweden, the country's largest newspaper Stockholms-Tidningen made him an influential medial consecrator, and due to his own author-and translatorship, he became a charismatic consecrator.Even though Österling certainly had no problems maintaining his strong position as an institutional and medial consecrator, the most prestigious position of them all, the charismatic consecrator, was the most difficult to maintain, given his relatively weak standing as a poet.Therefore his good reputation as an introducer and translator became more and more important.Was it in the context of these activities that he could retain and perhaps even strengthen his position as a charismatic consecrator in the literary field?
Larsson was primarily a medial consecrator, having the cultural pages of Svenska Dagbladet as her primary platform.She had a significantly lower symbolic capital than Österling, and thus a weaker position in the Swedish literary field, despite that she, at least at the beginning of the period under examination here, enjoyed a certain amount of literary prestige due to her literary works published by Bonniers.In addition, she didn't have any access to institutional power.Did she try to compensate for this lack?Her distance from Stockholm made it increasingly difficult for the Rome correspondent to assert herself in Sweden.In conjunction with the move to Italy, her opportunities for publishing her own literary texts ceased altogether.As it became increasingly difficult for her to maintain her position in the literary field as a writer, she proceeded to establish herself as one of Sweden's foremost introducers and connoisseurs of Italian literature.The 1950s was a decade in which Italian literature had begun to flourish again after a 20-year period of fascist censorship.There was, in other words, much for her to write about.
In addition to symbolic capital, Österling also had access to a vast amount of social capital.He was part of "a circle of multi-and longtime writers that dominated the formation of public opinion in the country", a circle that was "held together by bonds of friendship" (Westerström 2013:191, my tr.).Even in terms of social capital, Larsson was less priviledged than Österling.Her contacts, as they appear in her posthumous archives, were mainly Italian, while the Swedish network mostly included her colleagues at Svenska Dagbladet.
Finally, although there is no such thing as a specific "gender capital", it cannot be ignored that Österling was a man and Larsson a woman.In an elucidating study on the bourdieusian implications of feminist theory, Toril Moi claims that "under current social conditions and in most contexts maleness functions as positive and femaleness as negative symbolic capital" (1991:1036).In other words, a woman is always at a disadvantage because of her sex, although she still can have enough symbolic (and social) capital to exert a considerable influence on a given field.As we shall see below, gender turns out to be a crucial aspect of the introduction platforms.

Larsson's and Österling's introduction platforms
The authors of foreign literature texts were considered to have an important orientation function in literary Sweden during the period being examined here.In their activities, the daily press offered some indispensable "introduction platforms" (Alvstad 2010:171, my tr.), since it was mainly from these that foreign authors were introduced to the Swedish public.Westerström highlights that "[t]he knowledge of foreign literature, which was an indispensable condition for the work to appoint Nobel laureates, were to be found rather in the newspapers than at the universities" (2013:192, my tr.).
Both Österling and Larsson used the cultural pages of newspapers as their primary means of making their introductions, in addition to also contributing articles and translations of Italian literature to journals such as Bonniers Litterära Magasin, Lyrikvännen and Ord & Bild.For Larsson, the radio was another introduction platform from which she and Matts Rying conveyed their portraits of many Italian authors10 .Österling began participating in the Swedish press at an early age and wrote for several papers during his lifetime.Nevertheless, this activity has never been recognized: "Neither Österling himself, his contemporaries or the posterity has put the newspapers in the center of his activities.But one can not escape from the fact that his most coherent story is written right there" (Westerström 2013:186, my tr.).After leaving Svenska Dagbladet in 1936 for the more popular Stockholms-Tidningen, Österling remained loyal to the newspaper until its closure in 1966.Then he transferred to Sydsvenska Dagbladet, but his involvement there was more sporadic.As a reviewer in Stockholms-Tidningen, he quickly took a position as one of the leading critics (Westerström 2013:251).In terms of foreign literature, he was probably "completely free to choose both in terms of substance and of scope" (2013:252, my tr.), but by the time of the closure of Stockholms-Tidningen, Österling was not hiding that he missed Svenska Dagbladet, where he had been able to express himself "with greater ease and familiarity" (Westerström 2013:189, my tr.).
Svenska Dagbladet had in the 1930s become a cultural authority in Sweden.It was, like other cultural publications at the time, a very male-dominated sphere.When Larsson was employed, she became one of the paper's 9 women, while the other 53 employees were men (Järtelius 2014:49).Not least of all, the prestigious section called "Under strecket" ['Below the bar'], one of Sweden's leading platforms for the introduction of non-translated literature, was a distinctly masculine platform.As late as 1968, when the newspaper advertised by listing its steady employees, the only female names were those of Martha Larsson, Gunnel Vallquist and Sigrid Kahle.
Photo 1. Svenska Dagbladet's advertisement on the 50th anniversary of the section "Under strecket" (1968) The marginalization of women in the Swedish book market, as described by Johan Svedjedal (1994), thus appears to have been the case for the daily press' culture pages as well.A list of the most common names among the critics who, at least during parts of the period that is examined here, were devoted to Italian literature in the press and radio shows a clearly gender-polarized image: As shown above, Larsson was the only woman who devoted herself to the mediation of Italian literature, which leads us to consider her as an example of what Bourdieu calls a "miraculous exception".Even though Bourdieu uses the concept to highlight individuals from very poor backgrounds who manage to obtain access to higher education, the feminist scholar Toril Moi argues that the same concept is adequate for describing the few females that are accepted in a distinctly male environment (Moi 1991:1037).To some extent, Larsson became a female alibi for Svenska Dagbladet.In the advertisement for its international outlook, Larsson's name and picture was often used to guarantee the high quality of the publication.

Photo 2. Advertisement in Svenska Dagbladet with a photo of Martha Larsson and Federico Fellini
Male dominance prevailed not only among critics, but it also pertained to the gender of the Italian writers who were translated into Swedish during the given period.Of a total of 119 published works translated from Italian from 1948 to 1968, no fewer than 91% were written by men.11Even among poetry translators male dominance was almost complete, while the less prestigious prose was almost always translated by women.

Analysis of the selections
The survey of the works and writers that Larsson and Österling reviewed and introduced during the period 1948-1968 is based on existing bibliographies (in the case of Österling), 12 Svensk tidningsindex 1953-1960 ['Swedish newspaper index'] and the recently launched search engine of digitized newspapers at the Royal Library in Stockholm.The following analysis aims to find out which genres Österling and Larsson introduced and to what extent they chose male or female authorship.The subsequent analysis examines the writers they both chose to introduce and what possible consecration strategies they thus made use of in doing so.

Genre and author's sex
Since those mediators who dedicated themselves to male writers, especially poets, could accumulate higher symbolic capital than the ones who chose to introduce female prose writers, an analysis that takes into account factors such as gender and genre seems to be a fruitful way for better understanding the introducer's selection criteria.The two literary mediators reviewed nearly the same number of Italian works translated into Swedish during the 20-year period, which is remarkable since Österling reviewed books from many different languages while he was also the Swedish Academy's permanent secretary.Why did Larsson not review more?One answer is obviously that she had a time-consuming job in that she, as a foreign correspondent, had to monitor all the events of Italian politics and society, but one might also note that among Svenska Dagbladet's culture editorial staff in Stockholm, there were several (male) colleagues with a focus on Italian literature (see Table 1).That she had access at all to the cultural pages was due to fact that she had created a niche for herself by virtue of her geographical vantage point through which she came into contact with all the latest news in Italian culture.Even though she herself was a poet, she obviously did not get any occasion to review Swedish translations of this high-prestige genre.
The picture looks a bit different when Larsson and Österling themselves chose what genre to introduce: When the reviewers chose the genre, the selection became more varied.Not least of 12 For a summary of Österling's huge authorship, including articles and reviews, during the examined period, see the bibliographies compiled by Tottie (1964) and Willers (1974).
all, Larsson more often chose to write about exclusive genres such as poetry and theater, which can be perceived as a way of breaking new ground and accumulating more symbolic capital.Conversely, Österling reviewed less poetry, but as we shall see soon, this is simply due to his using a different strategy for introducing poetry.He also chose much more from what falls into the category "Other", which consists of biographies and books on literary history.Since such works had hardly any chance of being subject to translation and publication, the result can be regarded as a manifestation of Österling's own interests and a way of preserving his position in the field.With respect to reviews of translated works, both Larsson and Österling worked predominantly with male writers.Here again, freedom of choice, of course, was limited, and to some extent, they may have been assigned the works to review.Furthermore, one must remember that 91% of all the Italian works published as Swedish translations during the years 1948-1968 were written by men.For this reason, it is even more interesting to see how the selection is distributed across sex when the two mediators make a more deliberate selection, i.e. of untranslated works.Both Österling and Larsson largely overlooked female writers when introducing new and untranslated works for a Swedish readership.In Österling's case, we will probably have to note this striking neglection as part of the zeitgeist; he simply did not take women writers into consideration.According to Alvstad (2010), Artur Lundkvist's introductions to Latin American literature consistently avoided introducing female writers from the continent, despite there being many to choose from.A similar situation is seen in the Swedish importation of Italian literature during a period when male authorships decidedly dominated, even though there were several interesting female names that the two introducers would have been able to launch.The male norms prevailing in the field were reproduced by Larsson as well.As Moi has noted, the "miraculous exceptions" that originally belong to a marginalized group do not to necessarily develop a revolutionary or oppositional consciousness: "For the paradox is that members of minority groups who do succeed in such a system are at least as likely to identify with it as the enabling cause of their own success as to turn against its unjust distribution of symbolic capital" (Moi 1991(Moi :1037)).Thus, we should not expect from a privilegied female mediator, such as Larsson, to immediately set out to correct the uneven gender balance in the field.

Forms of introduction: poetry translations or articles?
The analysis of the material also provided a more unexpected result: in both cases, poetry was introduced in the form of translations.In fact, this form of introduction dominates strongly in Österling's case, but the manner in which the translations were published underscore the differences between the two mediators unequal positions in the Swedish literary field.
Throughout the period in question, Österling quite often published his poetry translations in the daily press.These translated poems appeared on the cultural pages completely independently, without any presentation at all.In fact, the charismatic consecrator's position and power could probably not be more clearly illustrated:  Larsson also published her translations of Italian poetry, mainly in Svenska Dagbladet, and occasionally also in Bonniers Litterära Magasin, but unlike Österling's situation, her translations never stood alone without any further presentation.
Particularly in the early period, it was more common for her to sneak them into her articles, without any reference to the translator, 13 as in the above example from an article on Dino Campana.
Starting in 1964, the year that Larsson's third poetry collection came out after 16 years of her silence as a poet, there would be a change: 14 now her translations were more likely to be printed independently, although always accompanied by a presentation of the author, as we can see in this translation of a poem by Pasolini: To summarize, Österling's strong position in Literary Sweden gave him a major advantage over Larsson.He not only had several introductory platforms at his disposal, but he could also use them to disseminate his own translations before they were published in a volume.However, the translations he published in the press should be regarded more as works in progress, since the cultural pages were never the final 13 I have found several of these unpublished poems in her archives Martha Larssons efterlämnade papper. 14It is noteworthy that during the years 1963-1968, her sympathetic colleague in Svenska Dagbladet, Åke Janzon, had become the cultural editor of the newspaper.Janzon himself had a great interest in Italian literature.destination of Österling's translations.That the same conditions did not apply to therelatively fewtranslations that Larsson had published in anthologies is evident in a letter from Johannes Edfelt, who had commissioned Larsson to translate some Italian poets for an anthology of world literature.In a handwritten addition to an undated letter to Larsson, he writes: "They should not be the first published in newspap.o. magazines!"(my tr.). 15

Selection and publication
Österling has been described as the leading introducer of Italian literature in Sweden (Westerström 2013), not least because he was considered to have made a significant impact on the Nobel Prizes to Salvatore Quasimodo and Eugenio Montale. 16Larsson's longstanding status as an introducer of Italian literature is always mentioned in the brief notes about her that appear in literary encyclopedias, but without any concrete author names or titles given. 17The fact is that no one really seems to know what she actually introduced. 18It is therefore necessary to examine the specific authorships and works that both she and Österling introduced.Two main questions are being asked: What tendencies can be discerned in the very selection of authors and works?And what consecrating strategies did the two use to introduce Italian literature in Sweden?The first question will be answered partly by placing the introduced works and authorships along the heteronomy/autonomy axis, where the works close to the autonomous pole has a high degree of literary prestige, while texts closer to the heteronomous pole rather obey to market principles, i.e. successes, best sellers and prize winning authors (cf.Bourdieu 1993:38-49).Based on Broomans's assumption on cultural transfer (see chapter 1 above), I will also examine the extent to which their introductions were accompanied by further translation and publication.

Anders Österling's introductions: promoting the heteronomous pole
Listed below are the works (and authors) that Österling reviewed in Stockholms-Tidningen.Although the selected period omits many years of his overall career, it still 15 In Swedish: "De bör ju inte först publiceras i tidn.ell.tidskrifter!"The letter is preserved in Martha Larssons efterlämnade papper.The letter in which Edfelt commissions Larsson to do the translations is dated 15 June 1959.The volume Världens bästa lyrik i urval was published by Natur & Kultur in 1961. 16Even though the picture has been partially modified in recent years (see Schwartz 2015a and 2015b). 17As for instance Anne Brügge's short presentation on the author in Nordic Women's Literatur in which she concludes: "Through her feature articles in the newspaper Svenska Dagbladet, Martha Larsson also introduced Italian poets to Swedish readers" (http://nordicwomensliterature.net/sv/writer/larssonmartha).In a letter to Larsson's sister Dagny, Anne Brügge, who had the task of writing the article about her for Nordic Women's Literature, explicitly asks which Italian poets Larsson introduced in Sweden: "Could you say that directly, or should I speak to the archives of Svenska Dagbladet or to Ola Gummeson?"(Letter from Anne Brügge to Dagny Larsson 27 February 1996, my tr.).covers a time span large enough to distinguish a pattern and draw some general conclusions, especially as this period in part coincides with Österling's engagement in dispersing Italian literature to a wider audience: his "intense interest in Italian poetry occurred from the late 1950s to mid-1970s" (Westerström 2013:438, my tr.).
The list below is divided into four parts: in the leftmost column are new, untranslated works of writers who were already translated into Swedish, with the year indicating when the article appeared in Stockholms-Tidningen.The second column indicates whether the introduced work was translated into Swedish and, if so, in what year, followed by the name of the publishing house.The third column lists untranslated works of authors who were not already translated into Swedish, which in the more strict sense can be considered as introductions.In the case of writers who were already published in Sweden, two-thirds of the titles reviewed by Österling were later published in a Swedish translation.It would be misleading, though, to interpret this outcome as a result of Österling's articles.I would suggest that he often chose to review the works of authors who were already published in Swedish rather than launching new authors.This choice can be explained by the fact that he had an audience in mind, the readers of Stockholms-Tidningen, which he himself experienced as less educated than, for example, that of Svenska Dagbladet, 19 and therefore he chose to review newly published books by authors who had already won many Swedish readers' hearts, such as Alberto Moravia. 20But the fact that he continues reviewing the same authors throughout the years also suggests that those were pencrafts 19 Svenska Dagbladet tried a few times to re-recruit him, but he chose to remain faithful to Stockholms-Tidningen.However, in his memoirs, Minnets vägar (1967), he claims that the culture section in the Stockholms-Tidningen had "simpler claims and habits in terms of literature"; he therefore saw writing for Stockholms-Tidningen as "a public education task", although it was difficult for him to follow the paper's rule to "avoid quotations in foreign languages". 20For a review of Moravia's huge popularity in Sweden, see Schwartz 2011.
that he followed on the behalf of the Swedish Academy.Among the 16 "real" introductions (column 3), only 5 will be translated, and in 4 of these cases there are other obvious explanations for this. 21Only when it comes to Saba can one say that Österling's introduction led to a Swedish publication of the work, being that it was translated by himself!On the other hand, it seems that these actual introductions should be regarded as the result of Österling's own interests; they reflect more what he happened to have read than an ambition to get a certain book translated.For instance, he often focuses on eccentric "personalities" and the dramatic lives of authors and their destinies, such as Calogeroa poet who died before his work was publishedas well as other controversial author personalities like Curzio Malaparte, Panzini, Petroni and Gozzi.He chose biographies remarkably often, especially those on Gabriele D'Annunzio.In a study of Italian literature abroad, Franco D'Intino ( 2008) emphasizes this tendency to pay attention to "lo scrittore-personaggio", writers with grandiose personalities and dramatic lives.
Österling's biographer Jenny Westerström argues that "[a]s a critic specializing in foreign literature, he introduced epic writers, playwrights and poets who worked for a renewal that went beyond the tradition he himself worked in" (2011:5, my tr.). 22But from his selection of Italian prose writers, it could be noted that he preferred those old solid realists who he himself had at least partly introduced in the 1930s and '40s: Alberto Moravia, Riccardo Bacchelli, Carlo Levi, Corrado Alvaro and Ignazio Silone.Thus it is clear that the search for innovators among the authors of the world, and to whom the academy during his years would give preference for the Nobel Prize,23 did not include Italian prose writers.Österling's predilection for Italian realism and regionalism is also determined by the criticism we have seen against the "perfume use" among Italian writers.Even though some of the writers he introducedsuch as Primo Levi, Carlo Emilio Gadda and Paolo Volponicould definitely be placed near the autonomous pole, it should be stressed that these introductions were made in conjunction with the prestigious literary prize Premio Strega. 24gainst this background, one can conclude that Österling did not write about new Italian works in order to have them translated and published, which is also logical given the fact that he had more than his share of good contacts in the publishing world to not have to resort going through the pages of a newspaper when he thought that something should be translated.Why then, did he spend his time writing reviews and introductions?One answer is that he used the newspapers to accumulate symbolic capital, using his role as a connoisseur of Italy and the foremost lyric translator of Italian.If the reputation of his own writing had fallen in Swedish literary circles, the esteem he obtained as a translator and introducer, especially of Italian literature, was intact.

Martha Larsson's introductions: towards the autonomous pole
Below is a summary of Larsson's reviews of and introductions to Italian works in Svenska Dagbladet during the years 1948-1968.The period coincides with her first 20 years as a foreign correspondent in Rome.During the period examined in this study, Larsson reviewed over 100 works, evenly distributed over the works of authors who had been introduced earlier and those of whom had not yet been translated into Swedish.Half of them would later be published in Swedish, but as in Österling's case, it was usually authors who were already available in translation.With respect to unintroduced authors (column 3), there are only a few lyricists who get translated shortly thereafter (mostly single poems in anthologies and periodicals), such as Pasolini, Campana, Sanguineti and Pagliarini.In several other cases, a striking tendency is that the translations appear many years later: Italo Svevo's La coscienza di Zeno, which Larsson introduced in 1949 was translated only in 1967; Primo Levi's La tregua, which she introduced in 1963 was translated in 1991; Natalia Ginzburg's Lessico famigliare which she also introduced in 1963 was translated in 1981 and, in 1968, a separate anthology (translated and edited by Österling!) was dedicated to Ungaretti, whom she first introduced in 1950.According to Broomans' model of cultural transfer, after the introduction, these works are supposed to have been in "quarantine" (i.e. the second phase after the discovery and before any translation) during all those years.But for how long a time can a work be considered in quarantine?
Broomans does not answer this important question, and therefore one might argue that Larsson's introductions were forgotten and that other forces in closer connection to the release had taken over: Primo Levi's La tregua, issued in 1991, had of course very little to do with Larsson's article from 1963. 42enerally, Larsson's selection was wide-ranging and varied: her introductions showed an excellent overall knowledge of the Italian literary field.Among her introductions, prose is the most notable, but she also introduced a great deal of poetry and drama, especially in the later years.Unlike Österling, she had an Italian perspective on literature, which led to many attempts to fill in the gaps by introducing important writers such as Svevo, Ungaretti and Campana.Moreover, while Österling's articles tended to present only the single work of a writer, Larsson often introduced the entire oeuvre.However, she also reported on the latest literary news, as for instance, on awardwinning writers, which reflects her awareness of taking into consideration literature closer to the heteronomous pole.
An important difference between the translated authors and the ones Larsson herself chose is that in the first category the selection is similar to that of Österling, with a predominance given to realists or neorealists which texts were mainly based on the content and therefore considered as heteronomous (cf.Sapiro 2016) such as Moravia, Silone, Brancati, Pratolini and Vittorini.In these cases, she reproduced the norms of the Swedish field and what was considered to be important Italian literaturenorms that to a large extent were formed by Österling's taste and judgment.Meanwhile, she often tried, especially in cases in which the authors were already published, to present their less central texts, which could be another explanation for the relatively low quote of following translations (in the case of Österling, it was two-thirds).She definitely preserved the norms that excluded female authorship.Larsson's selection consisted almost exclusively of high-prestige, male authors.Only in four cases did she write about female writers, and of them, all but one had already been translated into Swedish.In other words, she did not introduce any new female authorship.
The writers Larsson introduced by her own initiative belong to what is today thought of as the the canon of contemporary Italian literature: Giuseppe Ungaretti, Eugenio Montale, Bruno Barilli, Italo Calvino, Pier Paolo Pasolini, Giorgio Bassani, Carlo Emilio Gadda, Primo Levi, Tommaso Landolfi, Cesare Zavattini, Paolo Volponi and Anna Maria Ortese. 43By Swedish standards, Larsson made her introductions to the contemporary big names quite early: she launched Ungaretti and Pavese in 1950, Calvino in 1956, Montale in 1957, Pasolini and Cassola in 1960, Gadda in 1961, Primo Levi in 1963, Fo in 1964.Not infrequently, she wrote of the same author several times, for example, Ungaretti in 1950 and 1959, and similarily Pasolini was repeatedly introduced, first in 1960 and then twice in 1966.This indicates again that an article by Larsson published in Svenska Dagbladet was not enough to consider a writer as having been fully introduced.As she herself commented in an interview, her introductions "came too early" and therefore they were "lacking a soundboard" in the Swedish field (my tr.). 44This would not have been the case if she had had the position of a charismatic consecrator.One can thus deduce that Larsson's symbolic capital was not sufficient for creating herself a position as a charismatic consecrator.One should add that the difficulty was great since the Italian innovatorsi.e.writers very close to the autonomous pole such as Ungaretti, Montale, Pasolini, Gadda, Landolfi, Arbasino, Pagliariniwhom she chose to introduce in the 1950s and '60s challenged the Swedish literary canon and the old canonical image of Italian literature as regional, rural and rustic.She obviously tried to impose herself as a creatorcréateurof the literary field, in order to innovate it (cf.Kalinowski 2001), but her weak position and limited symbolic capital prevented her from being successful.An interesting observation, though, is that in some of the rare cases in which her introductions seem to have led to translation -as for instance Calvino's Cosmicomiche and the poetry of Pavese, Pasolini, Sanguineti and Pagliarinithe translator was Estrid Tenggren, who was also excluded from Stockholm's cultural circuits.45

Strategies of consecration: a matter of position and symbolic capital
As we have seen, the power to consecrate depends on a mediator's position in the literary field.Consequently, the position decides which strategies a mediator uses in order to introduce a foreign writer.One might expect that a consecrated consecrator, such as Österling, could introduce foreign works solely by virtue of his position, while Larsson, whose symbolic capital was decidedly lower, needed to use a greater number of consecration strategies to introduce an unknown authorship.Although Larsson and Österling often reviewed or introduced the same authors or works, they never mentioned each other in their articles.None of Österling's texts allude to his female colleague in Svenska Dagbladet, and only on one occasion does Larsson bring up the name Österling, and then as a poetry translator.This mutual silence could indicate that there was an ensuing power struggle.However, their introductions and reviews show both similarities and differences in their ways of presenting and judging Italian authors and works.In the following, I will discuss the main strategies that can be discerned in their texts.
The most common way for Larsson and Österling to initiate introductions was to locate the author's position in the literary field, in Italy and Sweden, as well as in other countries.When locating the author's position in Italy, his or her fame was often emphasized.Carlo Emilio Gadda was presented by Larsson as "Italy's most acclaimed writer right now" (SvD 20 May 1963, my tr.), and Österling talked about Ignazio Silone's "global reputation" (ST 5 August 1960, my tr.).Another strategy was to highlight the novelty of a writer, describing him or her as a newcomer: Österling noted that "Paride Rombi is a brand new name from Italy" (ST 30 March 1955, my tr.), and Larsson introduced Italo Calvino to Swedish audiences by stating that "he is the boy among Italian writers, and it is believed that he will remain so for quite some time" (SvD 13 April 1959, my tr.).Additionally, Österling, who was constantly in search of Nobel Prize candidates clearly tended to describe the representative authors as "front men" and "trendsetters".
On the contrary, in the cases in which the author's position in Sweden was mentioned, the two tended to emphasize his or her anonymity or failed introduction, as, for example, when Österling argued that the veristic writer Giovanni Verga  "is yet in our country a completely undiscovered celebrity" (ST 13 September 1964, my tr.) and that the "abundant riches" of contemporary Italian poetry "is very little known to us" (ST 24 March 1963, my tr.).Such allusions might be interpreted as a way to strengthen his own position, a sort of self consecration.It is implicit that Swedes' lack of knowledge concerning Italian literature is a deficiencythey can miss celebrities and world successesbut the lack can be corrected thanks to the efforts of the introducer.Österling's position in Sweden allowed him to express himself with greater certainty concerning the status of foreign authors in Sweden than Larsson, who was geographically remote from her audience.
Another way to consecrate the work in question was to refer to its successes in the form of literary prizes, publication of prestigious publishers and the number of editions.In his review of Tomasi di Lampedusa's best seller Il gattopardo, Österling regarded the book as "one of the biggest sensations in the Italian book market right now" and also noted that "the book has experienced seven editions so far" (ST 9 April 1959, my tr.) while Larsson spoke of "a literary event in Italy" and provided details of the book's sales figures (SvD 13 April 1959, my tr.).Milena Milani was described by Österling as "a young Italian who won the price of the publishing house Mondadori" (ST 19 October 1950, my tr.), and when he presents the famous poetry collection Il Canzoniere by Saba, he obviously finds it important to state that the book has arrived "newly printed from Mondadori" and that it is the "5th edition" (ST 12 September 1963, my tr.).
One of the most common approaches to a new unknown author was a comparison with other authors that were presumed to be better known by the reader.Interestingly, nearly a third of the comparisons in my material were made with other Italian authors, one-third with French writers, and the remaining third with English, German or Swedish writers.The large proportion of comparisons with Italian writers is, of course, obvious, but it also indicates that these were not only known by name to the Swedish reader, but also by style and content.The more comparisons there are with already consecrated authors, the greater the prestige, as in the case of Larsson's introduction of Gadda in which she claims that "Pasolini's dialect poetry and prose has paved the way for Gadda", and she describes the author as "an Italian James Joyce" or "an Italian Rabelais" (SvD 20 May 1963, my tr.).Österling is also very fond of describing by comparison as, for example, when he claims that Campana very well could be compared to Apollinaire (ST 24 March 1963) or when he indicates some parallels between Moravia and Maupassant (ST 30 June 1948).
A trait that is much more common to Österling than to Larsson is the emphasizing of the differences between Italy and Sweden, as for instance, when Österling states that "The Italians do not have the Scandinavian weakness for the great thick format" (ST 16 June 1951, my tr.).Even Larsson sometimes compares the two cultures, but she tends to mitigate the differences, as when she says that Italians have "as many tabus between parents and children as we have here on our colder latitudes" (SvD 25 August 1954, my tr.).The comparisons can be understood as a strategy used in order to consolidate their position as a link between the two cultures and literatures.In contrast to Larsson, Österling often assumed an exoticizing approach, giving expression to a kind of italophilia typical of a tourist.There are numerous examples of this approach in the corpus, especially in images as the following: "the Sicilian countryside, unchangeble, backward in its atmosphere of archaic antiquity harsh melancholy" (ST 9 April 1959, my tr.) and "in the same way as the puffing melody of an organetto of Naples in the midst of the urban noise" (ST 19 October 1950, my tr.).
Today, when talking about how literature travels across borders, it is assumed that peripheries and semiperipheries such as Sweden and Italy import from each other through more central languages like German, French and English (cf.Heilbron 2010).A recurrent consecration strategy, therefore, proceeds to tell how many languages a novel has been translated into.Interestingly enough, this perspective was entirely lacking in the introductions written by Larsson and Österling.Whether the works they presented occurred in translation to other languages was never mentioned by either author, indicating that the reception in other countries was considered less important than it is today.
The most striking difference between the introductions of Österling and Larsson is manifested in their reference to other authorities in the literary field as a way of consecrating a work or an author.In all the introductory articles (but also in the usual reviews), Larsson frequently refers to the judgments of other critics and literary historians.References to Francesco Flora recur very often in her presentations, as for instance, when she introduces the poet Dino Campana in 1953 with the following statement: "In Francesco Flora's literary history Campana is treated under the heading Mystics" (SvD 2 November 1953, my tr.).In the same article, she also quotes an anonymous critic and refers to "the critic Bino Binazzi" and "the Roman critic Enrico Falqui".These constant references to more or less prestigious Italian critics, illustrate clearly the strategy that Larsson adopted to compensate for her lack of institutional power.When Österling "introduces" the same poet 10 years later, he does not mention any critics by name; however, he states that: "the Italian literary criticism in many cases is highly qualified, but with a strong inclination to systematize" (ST 24 March 1963, my tr.).These differences are characteristic of the two introducers' ways of relating to Italian authorities.While Larsson is anxious not only to mention the names of various critics but to quote them as well, Österling feels free to criticize them or leave them out of the discussion.Only at one point in my material does Österling mention another critic, who interestingly enough is Benedetto Croce.But this great Italian authority was not being mentioned in order to support Österling; on the contrary, the Swedish critic is instead speaking of Umberto Saba being "dismissed by the great esthetician Benedetto Croce" (ST 12 September 1963, my tr.).In the review of Moravia's novel La romana, Österling declares his independence by saying: "how the literary critics have judged is still unknown to me" (ST 22 September 1950, my tr.).Obviously, Österling had so much symbolic capital that he did not need assistance from his Italian colleagues.It is noteworthy, though, that toward the end of the 1960s Larsson began to use a similar strategy as well.In an article on Ungaretti in which she discusses his complete work, and when referring to certain poems of the author, Larsson simply declares: "I have not read these poems" (SvD 25 November 1968, my tr.).
Overall, it is noted that Larsson used a greater number of strategies to increase her own legitimacy in the field, strategies that Österling rarely or never used.An example of Larsson's self consecration is when she emphasized her personal contact with the author in question or with some prestigious Italian critics.For example, she wrote about visiting Ungaretti's lectures in Rome and going to meet Gadda in his home in the 1950s.Furthermore, in an article about Pasolini, she interposes en passant: "but the last time I spoke with him" (my tr.).In addition to these direct contacts with Italian celebrities, Larsson highlighted her proximity to the Italian literature by quoting titles or texts in Italian and explaining what they mean: "Baffone", she explains, is a "popular Italian name for Stalin" and Alba de Céspedes novel, is entitled Quaderno proibito "which means 'Forbidden diary'" (my tr.).She also commented on the translations in more cases than Österling and referred frequently to the Swedish reader's perspective.Overall, these strategies were primarily self-consecrating, as they sought to emphasize her own immediate contact with the Italian literary life, which was also her only real trump card in this context.

Concluding remarks
The analysis has shown that the differences in the mediator's position and symbolic capital certainly have an impact on the capacity of getting works translated.Two thirds of Österling's reviews of works by already translated authors were subsequently published, while only a half of the works in the same category reviewd by Larsson led to translations.However, when it comes to the introductions of new and untranslated Italian authorship, nor Österling's neither Larsson's efforts were very successful.This result requires several explanations.First, it suggests that publishers were influenced through channels other than the daily press, a notion that is supported by one of my earlier studies (Schwartz 2013b).Second, this depends on the kind of authorships that the two mediators chose to introduce.In Österling's case, his efforts to introduce innovative Italian literature through newspaper articles are almost nonexistent.The few times that he would introduce a hitherto unpublished writer it was rarely something suitable for translation.His real introductions took place by the translations of poems published in the paper's cultural pages.All of these were later published in volumes as well.
Despite Larsson's own selection usually was far more initiated, learned and up to date, her introductions of untranslated authors rarely led to translations.Similar results have been found in other sociological studies, such as Kalinowski's survey on the French translators of Hölderlin, where the translator's prestige turned out to be of greater importance than the quality of his or her translations (Kalinowski 2001).In the case of Larsson's introductions, though, not few authors were translated many years later.This result leads to a need to problematize Broomans' six-phase model of cultural transfer, in which the initial phase is followed by a quarantine phase before the translation.Even though Broomans underlines that this quarantine phase can persist for several years, my results indicate that semiperipheral authors definitely need more than one or two presentation articles in order to get published.This conclusion also underscores the importance of powerful "ambassadors" in the receiving culture for a semiperipheric literature to cross borders.
When interpreting the results on an individual level, some facts indicate that Larsson's and Österling's introductions were not primarily intended to lead to translations.In Larsson's case, this could be seen in the tendency of introducing lesserknown works of translated writers, less commercially viable genres like drama and poetry, and finally writers who were supposed to be "untranslatable", such as Carlo Emilio Gadda.This observation leeds us to reflect on the hypothesis formulated in the introduction of this study.Bourdieu's statement about the personal profits that a literary mediator can gain by introducing important authors has been confirmed.The unique position that Larsson created for herself as a well-informed introducer of Italian literature close to the autonomous pole was a way for her to maintain any position whatsoever in the Swedish literary field.But even for a person with such a prominent position as Österling, it was obviously important to appear in the press.In his case, it was a way to defend his position as a charismatic consecrator, using his reputation as a connoisseur of Italy and poetry translator.This shows that if we take into consideration the mediators' motives for introducing literary worksadopting a humanized perspective on cultural transmissionit becomes clear that getting authors translated is not the only, neither the primary, purpose of introductions.

Table 4 :
Reviews of translated works from Italian (by author's sex)

Table 5 :
Reviews of untranslated works in Italian (by author's sex)

Table 6 :
Österling's reviews of untranslated works of translated and untranslated Italian authors from 1948 to 1968 andwhen appropriatethe following publications in Swedish.

Table 7 :
Larsson's reviews of untranslated works of translated and untranslated Italian authors from 1948 to 1968 andwhen appropriatethe following publications in Swedish.