Folia Scandinavica Posnaniensia
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Wayward Sisters. A Germanic Narrative Structure as Building Blocks in Two Íslendingasǫgur
No full textThis article focuses on the role and evolution of the Female Avenger in the Íslendingasǫgur, its patterns and narrative structure, by analysing and comparing two episodes from Gísla saga Súrssonar and Harðar saga. Þórdís (Gísla) and Þorbjǫrg (Harðara) draw upon an earlier Germanic archetype, best exemplified by Guðrún Gjúkadóttir, bringing about vengeance at the dinner table. However, where they differ is in the aftermath of said dinner. Building on the foundations laid by Guðrún, these two women set themselves apart from most other female characters by taking revenge into their own hands, instead of recurring to the usual, codified ways of getting revenge through inciting male relatives into doing it. Their brothers are their keystones, and their complex relationships make or break Germanic narrative structures. The turning point comes when both women betray their brothers, leading to their husbands having their brothers-in-law killed, news of the killing reaching the women at the dinner table, and the consequent decision to violently avenge their brothers. The reason for the appearance of this new structure might be found in a cultural shift, it might be purely narratological, or a mix of both. This paper seeks to answer this question
From Marracott to Munksnäs. Literary Suburbia and the Architecture of Finnish Modernity in Kjell Westö’s Melba, Mallinen och jag and Drakarna över Helsingfors
No full textThe purpose of this paper is to analyse the short story Melba, Mallinen och jag (1992) and the novel Drakarna över Helsingfors (1996) by Kjell Westö, with focus on the description of the suburbs of Munksnäs and Munkshöjden in the 1960s and 1970s. These two decades represent a pivotal moment in the history of Finland, as the country began to implement a fully capitalistic economy that led to radical socio-economic and cultural changes. From this perspective, the suburbs appear to be the ideal setting in which the new social hierarchy is established and the new economic dynamics unfold, with unavoidable conflicts and social tensions. Drawing on the neo-Marxist theory of Marshall Berman and recent studies on suburbs in city planning and literature, this paper aims to place the post-war Finnish suburbs in the literary tradition that started with Haussmann’s renovation of Paris as portrayed by Baudelaire in Le Spleen de Paris (1869)
Få och bli som byggstenar och murbruk. En kartläggning av två av svenskans frekventaste verb
No full textTwo of the most frequent verbs of the Swedish language, få (with the basic meaning ‘receive’) and bli (with the basic meaning ‘become’), share several characteristics. Both verbs are polysemic: få can express possession, permission, prohibition, causativity, inchoativity, and succeeded attempts; bli can express inchoativity, durativity, and future time. Both verbs take part in a variety of different syntactic constructions, such as functioning as a passive auxiliary. Depending on the meaning and function, they can be described as more lexical elements or rather grammatical: metaphorically speaking, få and bli can hence be seen as either building blocks or mortar. Together with the high frequency and the semantic and syntactic complexity, the two verbs share an additional common trait: they are the inchoative counterpart to the two most basic verbs of the Swedish language, ha ‘have’ and vara ‘be’, respectively. Whilst there exist studies covering the different meanings and functions of få, an equivalent study of the verb bli is currently lacking. This article presents a mapping of both verbs, followed by a brief reflection on their inchoative nature
Det hänger i luften. Aerial Architecture and Suspended Identities in Jonas Karlsson’s Short Stories
No full textIn Jonas Karlsson’s work the configuration of external or internal, imaginary, concrete or metaphorical spaces is central. The depiction of unstable, aeriform architectures is the primary focus of the short novel Utgången (2012). In this text, the theatre suspended in mid-air serves as a metaphor for the state of suspension experienced by the protagonist and mirrors the opaque identity of the first-person narrator’s dim self. Unstable subjectivities recur throughout the author’s short novels and epitomises the frequently comedic homo karlssonianus. Elsewhere, characterisations of space are equally significant, as seen in the diptych Min kompis på Gondolen, where the building’s suspension reflects the elusiveness of the self and its ethereal identity, and in the short novel Rummet, where the interior of a public office changes its coordinates and physical dimensions. This article investigates spaces in Jonas Karlsson’s literary production within the methodological framework of Geocriticism and in the attempt to highlight connections between the suspended architecture of a location and an elusive subjectivity. What is gained is a novel interpretation of place as thirdspace, hanging afloat the chaosmos, here intended as “the interlocking relationship or space of rhythm and chaos”
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No full textThe aim of this article is to investigate the use of fixed binomials and the productivity of their syntactic structure (A + conj + B) in Danish titles of media products. The study is based on a corpus of 137 titles from literary and non-literary texts, films, songs, albums, newspapers, and magazines published in print and online. The analysis shows that the titles contain both fixed and occasional word pairs, indicating a specific naming strategy. The titles are generally short and often consist solely of binomials used in their basic or slightly modified (reduced) forms. Occasional word pairs based on the syntactic pattern A + conj + B were identified in 66 cases (48,2%) across all groups of titles. These occasional binomials frequently display phonological features characteristic of fixed binomials, such as alliteration, rhyme, and rhythm. Differences in the distribution of fixed binomials and occasional word pairs across title groups can be explained by their communicative function: titles of literary texts more frequently contain fixed word pairs, whereas titles of non-literary and specialist texts more often consist of occasional word pairs
Concrete Homes in the Arctic Wasteland. Reconstructing and Reinventing Nuuk’s boligblokke in Danish Literary Fiction about Greenland
No full textNuuk, the capital of Greenland, occupies a unique place in contemporary Danish-language literature as both a modern Nordic city and a site marked by colonial history. This urban setting is a common feature of Lotte Inuk’s Sultekunstnerinde (2004) and Mads Peder Nordbo’s Pigen uden hud (2017). Through a close reading of significant passages from the two books, respectively a young adult novel with a clear autofictional component and an ‘Arctic noir’, I will focus on the architecture of (literary) Nuuk, with particular attention to a specific and ‘uncanny’ type of building: the characteristic concrete boligblokke built in the years of the so-called modernization, symbol of the centralization policies favored by Denmark starting from the 1950s. In Sultekunstnerinde, these buildings are ‘reconstructed’ and presented to the reader as places of childhood, while a recurring setting in Pigen uden hud is the controversial Blok P – which, in the fiction of the novel, is ‘reinvented’ as the setting of brutal murders of its inhabitants. The emphasis on spatiality and architecture, given the symbolic significance of these buildings, will be combined with a postcolonial reading
Hanna Dymel-Trzebiatowska, Helena Garczyńska, Maja Chacińska (eds.): Przyjaźń niejedno ma imię. Księga pamiątkowa dedykowana Profesor Marii Sibińskiej. Gdańsk: Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Gdańskiego, 2025. 310 pp.
No full textReview: Hanna Dymel-Trzebiatowska, Helena Garczyńska, Maja Chacińska (eds.): Przyjaźń niejedno ma imię. Księga pamiątkowa dedykowana Profesor Marii Sibińskiej. Gdańsk: Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Gdańskiego, 2025. 310 pp.Recenzja: Hanna Dymel-Trzebiatowska, Helena Garczyńska, Maja Chacińska (eds.): Przyjaźń niejedno ma imię. Księga pamiątkowa dedykowana Profesor Marii Sibińskiej. Gdańsk: Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Gdańskiego, 2025. 310 pp
The Dystopian Past and the Disappointment with the 1990s in Ur varselklotet by Simon Stålenhag
No full textSimon Stålenhag’s popularity has grown in recent years. Situated between picture books and anecdotal narration, his works have circulated widely and even inspired an American TV series. This paper focuses on Ur varselklotet (2014), a science fiction graphic book combining evocative images with short prose passages that both narrate personal anecdotes and serve as captions. The story recounts events from the narrator’s childhood and adolescence in the 1980s and 1990s, set against the backdrop of the Stockholm region. In a snowy landscape, the ruins of a fictional, now-abandoned particle accelerator, the world’s largest, loom: arch towers, metal spheres, and robotic machines blend seamlessly into the scenery. This analysis aims to explore how Stålenhag’s imagined architectures enable a rereading of Sweden’s political and economic history through a dystopian lens. Through visual and narrative elements, the author critiques Sweden’s transformation from a perceived “happy island” in Europe to a vulnerable state exposed to the consequences of 1990s neoliberal economic reforms. The dystopian imagery reflects disillusionment with a declining welfare system and the erosion of collective structures due to privatisation. Stålenhag thus uses retro-futurist aesthetics to comment on national identity, memory, and the socio-economic shifts of recent decades
The Architecture of Magic. Toward a Canon of Scandinavian svartebøker?
No full textIn the historical and cultural study of the impact of magical practices on everyday life in the Nordic region, a significant role is played by the examination of the composition, distribution, and use of black magic books commonly known as svartebøker. The widespread practice of composing, using, and transmitting these books is well-documented throughout the North as early as the 15th century. These are composite manuscripts that blend Latin formulas, invocations to saints and demons, remedies for improving one’s fortune or the health of livestock, spells to harm someone. However, comparisons across various manuscripts suggest that svartebøker generally followed a predetermined pattern based on local legends and beliefs, incorporating motifs of European scope. This pattern is reflected in the textual architecture of svartebøker across the Scandinavian region, likely creating a veritable canon of magical book composition. By analyzing some manuscripts from the Scandinavian area, this article seeks to highlight indispensable recurring patterns, widely diffused and reiterated over time, points that not only legitimize the remedies and formulas contained in the books but that also canonize a magical narrative structure. In addition, through folklore research, an attempt will be made to trace the origins of these patterns