Isa Asp: On a Summer Night

Isa Asp, a pioneer of Finnish women’s poetry who died young

Isa Asp (1853–1872) was an exceptional voice in early Finnish-language poetry. She has often been regarded as the first female lyric poet to write in Finnish, although this designation has also been debated in later scholarship. Asp’s life was very short: she died of lung disease at the age of 19, but managed to write poems, letters, diaries, and handmade children’s magazines.

Asp initially wrote mainly in Swedish, but while attending the Jyväskylä Teachers’ College, the role of the Finnish language in her writing grew in importance. She began her studies at the seminary in the fall of 1871 and dreamed of both a career as a public schoolteacher and a career as a writer. Her work was published during her lifetime and shortly after her death in, among other places, newspapers, the seminary students’ yearbook, and the "Memories"poetry booklet.

Isa Asp is a particularly fitting choice for the gallery because her story sheds light on an early turning point in the history of Finnish literature: she was a young woman writing at a time when literary life, education, and Finnish-language artistic poetry were still in their infancy. Her best-known poem is “Aallon kehtolaulu”, in which a wave is urged to sleep through the winter. The poem’s rhythm follows the movement of the wave, but in the background there is also imagery of a restless heart and approaching death.