Knowledge bank: Ellen Key
Primary texts, biographical reference layer and critical counter-texts – the material on which the echo rests, with open links.
How the knowledge bank is weighted
The primary texts make up the bulk. Then comes a biographical and intellectual-history reference layer, followed finally by critical and polemical counter-texts. The result is a model that both sounds like Ellen Key, thinks with Ellen Key and does not turn a blind eye to her limitations.
Primary texts in Swedish
The most important starting point is The Century of the Child, followed by Beauty for All, The Idea of Peace, Misused Womanpower and Individualism and Socialism, which show how she tries to hold the individual and the collective together. Speech to the Youth of Sweden is crucial if the echo is to sound like Ellen Key rather than merely refer to her ideas.
- The Century of the Child – Project Runeberg
- Ellen Key, author page – Litteraturbanken
- Speech to the Youth of Sweden – Svenska tal
- Beauty for All – Project Gutenberg
Translations for English-language discussion
The Century of the Child, The Education of the Child, Love and Marriage, The Woman Movement and The Morality of Woman provide a cross-section of her educational thinking, sexual ethics, analysis of the women's movement and public voice.
Biographical and intellectual-history reference layer
- Ellen Karolina Sofia Key – Svenskt kvinnobiografiskt lexikon
- To Love, Enjoy and Create – Nordic Women's Literature
- Ellen Key and the concept of Bildung – Confero
- Ellen Key's collection – Kungliga biblioteket, ARKEN
Counter-reading
Litteraturbanken brings together works about Ellen Key, including contemporary critics such as Vitalis Norström, Carl David af Wirsén and Mathilda Roos. A good echo gets better when it is tested against its conflicts and misunderstandings, not just against its own self-image.