Olaf Homén
1879–1949
Biography
Lars Olaf Homén (1879–1949) was a Finland-Swedish literary historian and critic. Born in Helsinki, he took his licentiate degree in 1914, lectured on modern literature at the University of Helsinki from 1917, and in 1919 became professor of Swedish literary history at Åbo Akademi in Turku. He held a chair in general literary history and poetics there until 1946. For much of his working life he also wrote book and theatre criticism for the journals Euterpe and Finsk Tidskrift and for several newspapers, and his reviews were admired for their learning and for an elegant style that often leaned toward irony.
His scholarly work centred on French classicism. His licentiate thesis, a study of the period 1630 to 1665, appeared in 1914, and a second series followed in 1916. He admired the French writer Anatole France and wrote a short study of him in 1906. Collections of his criticism came out in book form, among them I marginalen (1917), and his theatre reviews from Helsinki were printed in three parts between 1915 and 1919. He also edited an abridged Swedish edition of the Kalevala, published in 1944. A volume titled Poetik, edited for publication by Erik Ekelund, appeared in 1953, four years after his death.
The site holds Herr Corpwieth, gentleman-detektiv, a detective story that Homén wrote together with Emil Hasselblatt and Henning Söderhjelm, two other Finland-Swedish men of letters. It was published in 1914, and his bibliography lists it beside his scholarly books, which shows how far his writing ranged. Readers who know him only as a professor of literature will find a lighter side here: a crime story written by three writers together.
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Books
Herr Corpwieth, gentleman-detektiv
by Emil Hasselblatt and Olaf Homén and Henning Söderhjelm
Herr Corpwieth, gentleman detective, and his faithful companion solve cases in Helsinki around 1913, starting with strange goings-on at the university library. Three Finland-Swedish authors wrote these affectionate parodies of Sherlock Holmes, full of disguises, deductions and…
Summary written by Claude Opus 5.5.