Folia Scandinavica Posnaniensia
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Att komma från sitt lidande genom att skriva. Bränt barn söker sig till elden av Cordelia Edvardson som ett viktigt exempel på svensk vittneslitteratur
Full text linkThe purpose of the article is to show the way in which Cordelia Edvardson, the Swedish writer and eyewitness of the Holocaust, forms the work of recreating an identity beyond Auschwitz. Another purpose of this article is to show the way in which this book can promote and influence the creation of memorial images concerning the Second World War and Sweden’s participation in the global legacy of the Holocaust. In doing so, the analysis examines narrative instance and identifies textual strategies that promote the spread of a certain form of collective memory
”I kamp og på flugt”. Om H. C. Andersens Den lille havfrue gendigtet som en beretning om handicap
Full text linkThe present paper offers a study of two contemporary English-language reworkings of Hans Christian Andersen’s fairy tale The Little Mermaid: one by the M. Sickafoose (1995) and one by A. Woon (2016), from the perspective of disability theory. In each of them, the original tale has been reframed into a story featuring a young girl striving to approach her inability to walk while drawing inspiration from the original tale. Due to their use of intertextuality, the texts to be analyzed are discussed as examples of the so-called postmodern fairy tale, aimed at interrogating the relevance of classic fairy tales through the act of retelling. In spite of similarities in terms of theme, plot outline and character construction, the versions selected for the analysis differ in terms of ending scenarios, offering two complementary messages concerning Andersen’s tale. While exploring the changes in the overall understanding of disability underlying the original and the two contemporary versions, the analysis aims to determine the potential of Andersen’s fairy tale as a possible frame of reference while confronting handicap in the social reality of the present era
Sjukdom i ord och bild. Inferno av August Strindberg och August Strindbergs Inferno av Fabian Göranson
Full text linkInferno (1897) is one of the most significant works in August Strindberg’s vast oeuvre. It has been subject to many interpretations but due to its multidimensionality it defies clear classification and therefore continues to arouse the interest of researchers. In many respects it can be considered as an illness narrative because the autobiographical story of August Strindberg who suspends his writing career and gives up his family life to dedicate himself to science is indeed to a great extent a retrospective study of a deep mental crisis or even a schizophrenic episode. The hero suffers from delusions of grandeur and a persecution complex, succumbs to hallucinations and becomes entangled in religious and philosophical speculations desperately seeking a way out of his spiritual hell. Strindberg’s work inspired Swedish illustrator Fabian Göranson who published his graphic novel August Strindbergs Inferno in 2010. The aim of the article is to look at, using selected examples, descriptions of physical and spiritual torments in Strindberg’s text and compare them with the corresponding scenes created by Göranson by means of images and words
Early stages of periphrastic passive formation in Old Swedish
Full text linkThis article discusses the construction [SBJ varda PTCP], which is considered an early example of a periphrastic passive, in the extant Old Swedish legal texts. It has been argued that it is a nascent passive construction, different from the fully-fledged passive in Present Day Swedish. Based on a corpus study of all occurrences of the construction across Swedish provincial laws I argue that it bears all the hallmarks of a grammaticalized passive construction, with two exceptions. Firstly, it allows a wider choice of thematic roles of the subject, secondly, its main pragmatic function is inactivization in the sense of Haspelmath (1990). The study is grounded in Diachronic Construction Grammar and utilizes the typology of thematic roles proposed by Van Valin and LaPolla (1997)
Patologins teologi. Om sjukdom, synd och frälsning hos Birgitta Trotzig
Full text linkThis article has two aims. Firstly, it makes an attempt to shed new light on the representation of sickness in Birgitta Trotzig’s (1929–2011) writings. Secondly, the article, by using its analyses of Trotzig, tries to draw some theoretical conclusions concerning the possibilities of applying a theology of pathology in literary studies. While earlier scholars have interpreted Trotzig’s depiction of sickness by means of secular intertexts, the starting point of this article is Trotzig’s adopting of Christian anthropology as her untranscendable hermeneutic horizon. Thus, it is argued, sickness in her writings should primarily be related to theological contexts. By close reading of a representative text passage, the opening scene of Trotzig’s best known novel Dykungens dotter (The Marsh King’s Daughter, 1985), the article explores which contexts within Christian theology of sickness that would be specially fertile for an interpretation of her sickness discourse. The analyses reveal four theological notions of sickness as intertextually present in Trotzig’s narration: Augustine’s concupiscence, Sören Kierkegaard’s dispair, Pierre Teilhard de Chardin’s decomposition, and Eugen Drewermann’s neurosis. The main theoretical conclusions of the analyses are: (a) that the theological notions of sickness to a high degree differ from a ”natural” experience as well as from the biblical sources, (b) that these notions can contradict each other and generate conceptual conflicts, and (c) that the notions therefore, when applied in literary studies, demand strong hermeneutic control
The Grotesque in Bergamo. J.P. Jacobsen’s Pesten i Bergamo in light of Bakhtin, Boccaccio, and Dante
Full text linkThis article examines J.P. Jacobsen\u27s short-story Pesten i Bergamo (1881) through the lens of Bakhtin\u27s carnivalesque. Bakhtin\u27s carnival is a medieval societal alterity which takes hold in times of societal upheaval, here the spread of plague, and is depicted in the medieval literary mode identified as grotesque realism. It notes the narrative points in Jacobsen\u27s story that cohere to Bakhtin\u27s grotesque realism in two ways: the debauchery of the Old Bergamese citizenry, and the carnivalesque mockery of medieval religious practices, providing a structured inversion of previous societal practices established in the short story. It also examines close intertextual links between these elements in Pesten i Bergamo and Giovanni Boccaccio\u27s Decameron, offering a potential source for Jacobsen\u27s usage of grotesque realism as a literary mode and his depiction of societal reactions to widespread illness. Finally, it explores the literary geography of Pesten i Bergamo and how it coheres to the verticality of Dante Alighieri\u27s Commedia, specifically Inferno and Purgatorio. The article concludes that Jacobsen, knowingly or unknowingly, employed carnivalesque topoi to convey a medieval sense of medieval, following the medieval literary tradition broadly and more specifically the fourteenth-century Italian literary tradition, matching the temporal and geographic setting of Pesten i Bergamo
Epilog. Diagnoser og skønlitteraturens gnosis
Full text linkThis epilogue situates the special issue within discussions from the health humanities more broadly. It is argued that fiction and non-fiction books about issues of health and illness as well as research on the topic proliferate these years, because there has been a dearth of humanistic and existential inputs under a biomedical paradigm. It is suggested that there are three recurring themes that often characterize research on illness representations in literature: 1) Discussions of a medical and literary language use, 2) discussions of illness experiences as narratives, and 3) discussions of difficulties with transferring bodily experiences into linguistic representation
Introduction. Between Health and Illness. Literary conceptualizations of physical and mental suffering in contemporary Nordic literature
Full text linkThe present text serves as an introduction to the special issue of Folia Scandinavica Posnaniensia, “Between Health and Illness,” which is devoted to contemporary discourse on health and illness in Nordic literatures. Even though Scandinavian countries rank highest in happiness and well-being, illness as a literary motif maintains constant popularity and interest among both writers and scholars. The editors provide brief presentations of each contribution, some of which originate from conference speeches held in December 2022 in Poznań
“Didn’t that sound like the north was calling us?” Imagined geographies and Cold War legacies in Sofi Oksanen’s Dog Park (Koirapuisto)
Full text linkThe article presents a discussion of Finnish-Estonian author Sofi Oksanen’s 2019 novel Dog Park (Koirapuisto), a social and psychological thriller about two Ukrainian women working in the Ukrainian fertility industry, offering surrogacy services to Western clients. The novel explores some of the new modes of exchange and cultural encounter that were established between Ukraine and the West after the collapse of the Soviet Union. It presents a reflection of the social and human consequences of the transition from communism to capitalism but is also a story of how the legacy of Cold War geopolitics continues to shape European mental geographies and experiences at the intersection of East and West. Drawing on concepts from human geography and postcolonial studies, the article offers a reading of Oksanen’s novel focusing especially on how the novel negotiates these geopolitical shifts as well as the position of the Nordic countries on the changing European map
Introduction: New Geographies of Scandinavian Studies. Moving maps, reciprocal images, emerging communities
Full text linkThis article provides an introduction to the Research Network “New Geographies of Scandinavian Studies” while at the same time discussing some of its main concerns and questions: the position of the Nordic countries and the role of Scandinavian Studies in the changing geopolitical landscape of post-Cold War Europe. The collapse of the Eastern bloc in 1989–1991 led to a reconfiguration of the European political map. This situation also entailed new possibilities for international and cross-disciplinary research: A new understanding of Nordic and Baltic studies was institutionalized and new regional concepts were developed as alternatives to Cold War geopolitics. The network “New Geographies of Scandinavian Studies” is rooted in this ongoing reorientation of the field. The article discusses some of the potentials and challenges of this new agenda of Scandinavian Studies in the context of the new geopolitical confrontation between Russia and the West after Russia’s military attack on Ukraine in February 2022