This study ­is the first dissertation where the genre of reportage (in the U.S. classified as literary journalism) is systematically mapped with the help of narratology. Using tools primarily from structural discourse narratology, the thesis examines, describes and maps written reportages as narratives. Rhetorical and cognitive narratology complement the approach. 

The investigation rests on two assumptions. Firstly, a reporter’s professional purpose is to report about people and states of affairs outside the reporter herself. This results in a contextual commitment, which leaves traces in the narrative in the form of a textual commitment. The latter is in turn divided into narrative empathy and narrative compassion/sympathy. The thesis highlights the creation of narrative structures and stylistic features in reportages and the overall conclusion is that conceptions about a reporter’s professional purpose in fact do influence the narrativity of the text. 

Secondly, in contrast to news journalism, reportage is a personal genre that can be considered a directed reality: the content is taken from reality but the form is personal and a consequence of the writing reporter’s choices. The thesis presents a narratological model where the text develops in the interplay between three instances: a director, a narrator (in a first-person reportage a narrating reporter) and experiencing characters (in a first-person reportage including an experiencing reporter). The director should be regarded as a structuring property of the text itself. 

Part 1 provides a historical background to the reportage genre and the social side of the reporter role. In part 2, narrative characteristics of the genre are explored and defined together with the common roots of reportage and novels within realism and naturalism. Part 3 demonstrates how a contextual commitment can be transformed into a textual commitment. Throughout the dissertation, the director model is used to investigate differences and similarities between subcategories within the genre, sometimes between single texts, sometimes between reportage in general and fictional narrative. In part 4, a typology of reportage is presented. The genre is divided into five types of narration, based on the representational relation between how the physical reporter has collected information and in what ways an experiencing reporter is or is not apparent in the text. 

The thesis ends with a historicization of consonance and dissonance within the reportage genre. Consonance emphasizes the characters’ “here-and-now” and can be found within a broad, classical tradition of eyewitness reporting. Dissonance emphasizes the narrator’s retrospective perspective and can be found within the modernistic type of American New Journalism and in more experimentally written reportages from the most recent decades. The thesis demonstrates how both these ways of narrating may enable the reader’s narrative empathy with someone else than the experiencing reporter.

The analyses and conclusions are mainly based on Swedish reportages from 1819 to 2014. This material is complemented with international reportages from 1903 to 2007,  from Norway, Poland, Germany, Great Britain, Italy, Bohemia, Croatia, Belarus and the U.S. Accordingly, the dissertation demonstrates that traditions of reportage are primarily international and that the observations about narrative patterns within the genre are also relevant outside of Sweden. 

The article examines how popular feminist discourses on confidence are expressed in contemporary Swedish popular romance literature through a close reading of Simona Ahrnstedt’s novel Allt eller inget from 2017. It is argued that the novel relies heavily on an individualized and commercialized popular feminist message, but that it also nuances, questions and presents alternatives to it.

The aim of this study is to expose and analyze the ways Yennefer of Vengerberg in the series The Witcher is prescribed a monstrous female identity. This has been done by applying three theories to the selected material, Crip Theory by Robert McRuer, The monstrous feminine by Barbara Creed and Colleen Donnellys analysis of the visual impact. The three theories have been used to identify how Yennefer is defined as a female monster and how this is done based on her physical appearance and personal characteristics as well as her performative actions. The conclusions of the study highlight the importance of beauty and a normative body in relations to what can be seen as the monstrous feminine. The findings can be applied to a wider set of society context, to better understand our view and perception of the female identify, and to help us expose underlying cultural patterns that in many ways place barriers for women.

”Lögnen så Lekande Lätt. En analys av maktrelationer

i Monika Fagerholms Den amerikanska flickan”.

Johanna Aggestam, kandidatuppsats i litteraturvetenskap,

framlagd för Ulf Olsson, HT 2008. Stockholms universitet,

Institutionen för litteraturvetenskap och idéhistoria.

Den här undersökningen har som huvudsyfte att definiera och finna orsaker till de maktrelationer som är centrala i Monika Fagerholms Den amerikanska flickan utifrån tre olika frågeställningar om makt, lek, och lögn. Maktrelationen tycks utgå från en lögn och hur den delvis återspeglas i de lekar som huvudpersonerna Sandra och Doris leker – som i sin tur har som syfte att skapa subjekten, definiera det hitintills odefinierade. Jag utgår i analysen från de fyra begreppen makt, lek, lögn och språk och använder mig av valda delar av Michel Foucaults maktanalys, Judith Butlers performativitetsbegrepp samt i viss mån en kortfattad teoretisering kring lekakten per se.

Min metod är att genom textexempel ur romanen belysa maktrelationens olika fundament med hjälp av maktanalys, performativitet och lek. Fokus ligger enbart på romanens två centralkaraktärer och deras identitetsskapande.

Problematiken i maktkampen är att flickornas skapande av subjekt flyter in i varandra och när en maktomkastning sker i relationen går inte deras respektive världsbilder längre ihop. Lekarna och de performativa akterna i lek och språk är identitetsskapande men eftersom leken från det ena perspektivet bygger på en lögn blir skapandet av subjekten skevt. Språket flickorna använder är ett sätt för dem att ta makten över sin position i världen. De skapar sig ett eget språk som till en början är gemensamt och unikt för dem men med tiden blir mer och mer oöversättbart och åtskilt. Sandras och Doris uppfattning om sanning vilar i leken, vilket visar sig såväl hjälpa som stjälpa deras individuella utveckling.

Living in an era where success is embraced as a life style, raises concerns that the alternatives to become, to grow and mature have been limited to a single variety – one where only triumph matters. This is a view that is spread through contemporary popular culture, whether it be in social media, video games, tv-series, films or books. One of its origins can be found in Christopher Vogler’s dramaturgical template The Hero’s Journey. A common motif used in The Hero’s Journey is the Quest-motif; a knight on an adventure seeking the holy Grail; or Indiana Jones on search for the Arch. One of the foremost examples of the Quest-motif in English literature is the medieval poem Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, but the hero in this tale does not come of age through success, but rather through shame and failure.

By comparing the original 1400-century alliterative poem Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, with the 2021 film adaption The Green Knight, and relating them to the Hero’s Journey, the aim of this essay is to show that the ways to become are altered in the adaptation and to argue that the film is moulded to fit with the Hero’s Journey. This essay proposes that contemporary story telling lacks alternative ways to become, since modern narrative structures are focused on Coming of Age through success in accordance with the Hero’s Journey. If storytellers can create a greater awareness of the discourse of success and how they themselves are subjects of malleability of this discourse, maybe the contemporary audiences will experience narratives that provide a variety of ways to become, creating a world shaped by diversity and inclusion.

Cet article aborde quelques aspects et fonctions concernant le début d’un corpus de romans arabes du XXe siècle, constitué en fonction de leur diversité technique et thématique. L’analyse des débuts est basée sur une approche à la fois discursive et narrative et prend en compte les aspects suivants : les trois codes figuratifs (espace, temps, personnage), le rapport du début avec l’ensemble de la structure narrative du récit, la manière dont le début annonce les idéologies sous-jacentes, le lien éventuel entre le début et la fin du récit, enfin, les répercussions de l’évolution chronologique du roman arabe sur le début de celui-ci.

Cet ouvrage consiste en une étude détaillée des débuts d''un corpus de romans arabes du vingtième siècle, constitué en fonction de leur diversité technique et thématique. Il tente de répondre aux interrogations suivantes: Qu''est-ce qu''un début de roman? Quelles sont, sur le plan énonciatif, les "priorités" dans le début? Comment le début fonctionne-t-il par rapport à l''ensemble du récit? Les composantes principales de l''histoire y sont- elles annoncées et si oui, comment? Enfin, existe-t- il des aspects spécifiques aux débuts des romans arabes liés à la culture dont ils sont issus? L''auteur a, par ailleurs, adapté une approche à la fois discursive et narrative et pris en compte les aspects suivants: les trois codes figuratifs (espace, temps, personnage); le rapport du début avec l''ensemble de la structure narrative du récit; l''éventuel lien entre le début et la fin de celui- ci, enfin, la manière dont le début annonce les idéologies sous-jacentes. Cette démarche a, parallèlement, permis de dégager les convergences et les divergences entre les récits étudiés et d''y repérer une certaine évolution chronologique.

This article presents shortly the evolution of the concepts of Utopia and Dystopia in the Modern Arabic narrative literature. It focuses then on the Utopia/Dystopia related to the theme of immigration. The two short stories: Aknusu al-šams ʿan al-suṭūḥ (1994) by Ḥanān al-Šayḫ, and Bi-l-Ams Ḥalimtu Bika (1984) by Baha’ Tahir are chosen to underline several aspects of the Utopia/Dystopia of the immigrants life. Before leaving their homelands, they seem to have an Utopian image of the foreign country. After arriving there, this Utopian image disappears in the context of a negative reality: lonliness, racism, loss of landmarks.... At the same time, the Dystopia of the reality creates, itself, a new form of Utopia: the faraway homeland. Thus the process of immigration seems to start from the Utopian elsewhere and ends by the Utopian homeland.  

With a focus on the shifting use of the concept of the barbarian, Anna Albrektson positions the figure of Medea within the context of colonial expansion. Euripides labels Medea a barbarian, but this identity is pinned on Jason in several versions from the 1770s and 1780s, when a concomitant sentimental strategy enhances Medea’s position as woman and victim of male cruelty. The idea of the ‘ethical barbarian’ becomes a cultural commonplace within eighteenth-century literature. By the 1790s, however, Medea is translated once more into an ethnic barbarian in versions that abandon the Enlightenment idea of human universality. The interplay between Enlightenment discourses, colonial experiences, and aesthetic experimentations form the context for these often divergent representations of Medea from several European nations.

The late eighteenth century witnessed multiple Medeas on the stages of Europe, in the Americas, and across the Russian empire, both to the east and to the south. Performances took place in Moscow and São Paulo, in London and Lisbon, in Gotha, Stuttgart, and Venice. This volume examines the reasons why Medea attracted the attention of authors, audiences, actresses, and rulers in Europe and its colonies during the pivotal period 1750 to 1800, and to what effects. As migrant and iconoclast Medea crosses a number of eighteenth-century borders: linguistic, cultural, national, temporal, spatial, aesthetic, ethical, and generic. Moreover, the fact that late eighteenth-century playwrights, poets, composers, and choreographers all turned to one of the most problematic characters of Graeco-Roman antiquity offers a unique opportunity to examine the remarkable flexibility of the reception process itself. By studying the figure of Medea within the revolutionary context of the late eighteenth century, it is possible to explore the negotiations between court culture and the emergent metropolitan cultural centres, as well as the role of antiquity in national, imperial, and colonial politics at this time.

This introductory chapter outlines the overall aims of the volume and its theoretical perspectives and provides analysis of the ancient sources. It begins with an overview of Medea at the hands of colonial Europe and a discussion of the close (and often deliberate) parallels between Medea and the hugely popular Inkle and Yarico story, first published in The Spectator in 1711 and then subsequently regularly reworked in multiple media throughout the century. The middle section delineates the 1750–1800 focus and the significance of the synchronic approach at a moment of revolutionary change that precipitated the migration of ideas and people across borders, despite or even because of emergent geopolitical boundaries. It concludes with an outline of the volume’s bi-part structure: encompassing the context of expanding empires of the late eighteenth century in the first section to aesthetic transgression and innovation in the second.

Research in the field of fictional and possible worlds examines the real and its hypothetical counterparts. The interaction between the actual and the fictional is a cause of debate within this field, and includes questions concerning the ontological status of fictional characters and their relation to reality. The following discussion will engage current positions in this debate. These include questions of reference regarding the correlation between fictional characters and actual personalities. Studying the transmedial migration of character properties from fictional worlds into the actual world engages with the possible as dependent on the actual, as well as the influence fiction can have on reality, by demonstrating how individual characters are perceived as packages of properties, some of which we identify and recognize as adaptable to our own behavior. Transmedial migration requires compatibility between different media. Accordingly, it is explained through the direct correspondence of fictional properties to actual properties, and the indirect correspondence of fictional characters to actual people. I am claiming that an interaction can be observed between different media, such as fictional worlds and the actual world, with particular emphasis on the example of fictional characters and their properties. In order to comprehend this we need a robust framework and the model that I am proposing here comprises the essential elements for such a framework. The transmedial migration of character properties from a textual medium, such as a Sherlock Holmes story, into the physical, social medium of the actual world is the action of adapting a fictional character’s package of properties into an actual person’s behavior. The agency of actual people in adapting fictional character properties to their corporal, social actions is what constitutes transmedial migration. This is a specific example of behavioral learning that recognizes certain behavior by the means of a label or trademark that is acquired from a fictional character. It is conceivable that any number of behavioral attributes, such as attitudes or habits, could be scientifically proven to have transmedially migrated by means of experimentation. Nevertheless, culturally and socially, it is only the definite identification of such character properties that substantiates my argument of transmedial migration through adaptation.

This article sheds light on translated children’s literature in Sweden during the period 2015-2020. A relatively large portion of children’s literature in Sweden (36% according to 2020 data published by The Swedish Institute for Children's Books), from toddler books to young adult literature, comes from translations. It has been shown in polysystem research in particular (see Even-Zohar 1979; 1990), that countries such as Sweden, so-called ‘semi-peripheral’ (Heilbron 2000) or with a so-called ‘dominated language’ (Casanova 2002, 9), are known to import a lot of literature because, for example, their internal production is rather limited, which a priori is not the case in Sweden.

We first present a panorama of what kinds of books are translated to Swedish and from which languages. We focus then on the particular position of French speaking (broadly defined) children’s literature in Sweden, the global phenomena of the series and the emerging wimmelbooks in which French illustrators. We observe that even if Sweden has a larger national production, there is still an important number of translated picturebooks, in which French illustrators may fill a vacuum.

Presentationen tar upp Kitty Crowthers reception i Sverige som visar sig vara mångfasetterad. Den belyser vidare Alma-prisets roll i konsekrationen av författaren men också ett svenskt barn- och ungdomslitterär fält som är i sökande av självständighet i fältet av världslitteraturen och hur receptionen av Crowther förstärker konsekrations instansen. 

En 2015, 2089 livres pour la jeunesse ont paru en Suède, selon l’Institut Suédois des Livres pour Enfants (Bibliothèque Royale de Suède). 43% de ces livres sont traduits, et parmi eux la majorité (61%) est traduite de l’anglais mais le français arrive en sixième position avec 4,4%. Notre étude va présenter : combien il y a de livres pour la jeunesse traduits du français en suédois de 2010 à 2015, quels sont les types de livres traduits et quels thèmes ils abordent, notamment comparativement aux thèmes du système national et plus spécifiquement concernant la représentation de la France et de la culture française. Enfin, une étude de réception permettra de montrer comment ces livres sont reçus dans la culture cible.

Quatre questions vont se poser pour notre étude de Fifi Brindacier : que vaut la nouvelle version de 1995 et qu'apporte-t-elle de nouveau par rapport aux premières versions ? En quoi diffèrent les versions de 1951 et de 1962 par rapport à l'original ? Quel succès pour Pippi Långstrump en Suède et en Europe ? L'insuccès du livre en France et les choix de la traductrice sont-ils liés au contexte socio-historique et littéraire français d'après la seconde guerre mondiale?

La littérature de jeunesse est une littérature traditionnellement sous surveillance mais, en France, elle tente de se dégager, depuis les trente dernières années, d’une fonctionnalité éducative et moralisante. Lorsque deux romans pour adolescents suédois Faire le mort de Stefan Casta et Quand les trains passent de Malin Lindroth paraissent en France au début des années 2000, le débat sur le « peut-on tout dire aux adolescents/enfants » se réanime et ces deux romans sont, avec d’autres accusés par la critique de contribuer à « noircir » la littérature de jeunesse, voire à la rendre « malsaine ». Qu’est-ce qui dérange dans ces deux romans venus du Nord et pourquoi cet accueil français ? Ces deux romans mettent en scène une violence relativement inédite en France, celle de la violence gratuite entre des adolescents. Depuis la parution de Sa Majesté des mouches de William Golding (1954) au début des années 2000, peu de romans ont osé mettre aussi clairement en scène des adolescents-bourreaux se déchainant violemment contre un des leur sans (à priori) raisons particulières. Devant la nouveauté de cette thématique si sensible mais plus tabou, nous nous proposons de nous interroger ici, et à travers la réception de ces deux romans, sur la notion de « violence gratuite » à l’aide notamment du philosophe René Girard et les conséquences que cela implique en littérature de jeunesse. Nous nous attacherons ensuite à l’esthétique de la violence dans ces romans et sa mise en place,  en comparaison avec celle française, pour montrer comment finalement, malgré la sensibilité du sujet, se met en place un « respect du lecteur ».

In the context of Children's Literature, the treatment of violence and its cruelty may challenge the norms as well as the adult reader’s “horizon of expectation”. Guillaume Guéraud is one of the few French authors for young adult’s readers who chooses to ignore such norms. This article shows how violence is portrayed in three of his novels and how it can culminate in a “non-happy ending”. The omnipresence of the red and black motifs in Guéraud’s novels grants the teen reader a higher status, and transcends the didactic function often ascribed to adolescent literature.

This article studies the translation flows of picture book series between Scandinavia (Sweden and Norway) and France between 2011 and 2021. According to studies on literary flows, countries having so-called « dominated » and « peripheral » or « semi-peripheral » languages, for example Norway and Sweden, should import more literature from the core (France) than the other way around. However, the present study shows that this theory does not hold water regarding picture books for children aged 3-6 years, where the literary flows from the core to the (semi-)periphery are uneven, or even non-existing. We are able to ascertain that the status of the picture book series is maintained as they cross the borders between France and Scandinavia. Moreover, the series translated to French are almost always characterized by a high literary legitimacy (symbolic recognition of authors and works, limited number of titles per series, affirmation of graphic and authorial creativity), with often a representation of a Scandinavian perspective. The fact that the books originally are part of a series is rarely foregrounded as a marketing device in Scandinavia, but on the contrary, this could be the case in France. The translation flows concerning picture book series show that seriality, sales figures and literary legitimacy are compatible.

This article deals with the reception of the translations of the Belgian picture book illustrator and writer Kitty Crowther in Sweden, from the moment she got the prestigious ALMA-prize 2010. The analyse of the reception of her translated work to Swedish through press articles and professional critics shows that she was unknown in Sweden before she gets the prize and that it permitted her to quickly win a high status in the Swedish literary field for children. We also found that the articles linked willingly Crowther and her illustrations to Scandinavian. We argue that in fact, giving her the prize is making a self-consecration (Casanova). By doing this, Sweden reinforces its role as a consecrator in the world field of Children’s literature and strengthens the autonomy of its position in it.

Le présent article s’intéresse aux difficultés de traduction des jurons dans la version française du roman suédois Här ligger jag och blöder (2010) de Jenny Jägerfeld (Mère forte à agitée, 2015). Il s’agit de comprendre si les jurons ont résisté à la traductionet à quel degré. Les questions centrales de cette présente étude sont de savoir quels sont les procédés utilisés par les traductrices et s’ils préservent les fonctions des jurons. De plus, nous avons étudié quelles conséquences ces choix de traduction ont dans le texte cible. Nos résultats indiquent que les traductrices restent proches du texte source par un constant équilibre entre différentes stratégies de traduction, mais qu’elles font aussi preuve de créativité et d’originalité, ce qui permet au texte français de garder la spécificité du texte suédois.

Utgångspunkt för min uppsats är den bild av Emil Kléen som förmedlas i Hjalmar Söderbergs Martin Bircks ungdom.

I min C-uppsats undersökte jag i vilken utsträckning Emil Kléens tryckta dikter kan kallas dekadenta, och intresset vaknade därmed för hur Kléens ”riktiga” dikter ser ut. De som ”icke kunna tryckas”. Lasse Söderberg publicerade 1980 en av Kléens otryckta sonetter i Tärningskastet, som är långt mer dekadent i sin framtoning än någon av Kléens tryckta verk. Dikten andas Baudelaire och fin-de-siécle på en nivå som i tryckt skick skulle varit otänkbart i den svenska borgerliga miljön på 1890-talet. Söderbergs porträtt av Kléen ger oss dessutom följande bild av hans tryckta alster: ” […] han skrev med en fabelaktig lätthet de allra vackraste vers om vad som helst, mest om flickor och blommor och om juninätterna på den skånska slätten, som han kom ifrån. 

I Kléens alster möts Baudelaire och de ”dekadenta” poeterna i hans efterföljd och ”nittiotalismen”, hembygdsromantiken, i Sverige på ett unikt sätt. Prosadikter är ett eget kapitel i en modernitetsdiskussion, vilket Lars Nylander undersöker i sin doktorsavhandling Prosadikt och modernitet. Prosadikt som gränsföreteelse i europeisk litteratur, med särskild inriktning på Skandinavien 1880-1910. Det förekommer prosadikter ibland annat Kléens Vildvin och vallmo från 1895 som har klara drag av det modernas inträngande i samtidens mentalitet, Nietzsche och ”öfvermänniskan” och en dekadent betraktelse av Venus Vulgivaga och krossandet av en geting under skaldens fot kan nämnas.

I Mogen sommar, Kléens enda novellsamling, tas problemet med fri kärlek mellan borgerlighet och arbetarklass upp. En annan novell behandlar ”Tattarblodet”. Det intressanta är att med hjälp av eventuella kontrasterande tryckta och otryckta verk undersöka spänningen mellan modernitet – borgerlighet – bygderomantik i en turbulent tid i Sverige. Tiden precis innan sekelskiftet 1900. Hur ser bilden av den dekadente poeten ut i denna samtid kontra den hembygdsälskande nationalskalden? Att utveckla dessa frågeställningar i en diskussion kring mötet mellan den urbana, moderna kontinentens estetik och ett mer hembygdsromantiskt Sverige, med Kléen som indikator. Hur problematiseras denna fusion hos en poet som Kléen, som var en av de första att mottaga influenser av Baudelaire och den franska ”dekadensen” i Sverige? Dessutom en man som mötte och hade täta kontakter med både Strindberg, Söderberg och de unga gubbarne i Lund och vars liv brukar samställas med hans dekadenta ideal, och hans diktargärning som perifer hembygdspoesi.

Den bild av Emil Kléen som övervägande presenteras i allehanda litteraturöversikter och artiklar är en ung legend, som inte blivit legendarisk av sin egen skaparkraft, utan mestadels på grund av att han figurerar i Strindbergs, Söderbergs och andra mer eller mindre kända sekelskiftesförfattares litterära verk. Bilden som förmedlas i dessa verk är den dekadente Baudelaire-efterliknaren (inspirerad även av Verlaine och Rimbaud), som dock inte själv lyckas med att skapa lyrik som skiljer sig från den rådande nittitalismen. Starkt metriskt bundna verser (t.ex. sonetter) med blommor och prålig landskapsanknytning är det som i forskningen mestadels nämns om Kléens egna skapelser. Detta trots att inte många av hans dikter är analyserade till innehållet i de artiklar som jag läst. Att de är strikt metriskt bundna stämmer dock.

Lasse Söderberg nämner, utan att precisera sig nämnvärt, att innehållet i Kléens diktning, och ”de sidorna som vetter mot Baudelaire, Verlaine och dekadenterna” är det intressanta. Christina Sjöblad pekar på Baudelaireinspirerade exempel i Kléens poesi och Folke Isaksson sticker ut ur mängden med sina påståenden om de dekadenta och livsnihilistiska dragen i Kléens dikter, dock utan fördjupning. Det är här jag vill börja formulera en frågeställning. Går det att finna ”dekadenta” inslag i Kléens lyrik, och i så fall var, och hur? Dessutom måste självfallet begreppet ”dekadent” definieras, och anknytas till den tidens fin-de-siècle-mentalitet.

Kléen var enligt samstämmiga källor privat en dekadent rumlare i Lund som tillsammans med Lidforss och Böök ägnade otaliga pubkvällar åt Absint och filosofi. En outgiven sonett (bifogas på blad 2) av Kléen är ett mycket bra tecken på att det borde finnas mer att finna i hans publicerade lyrik när det gäller den innehållsliga särart som möjligen skiljer honom från nittitalismen, trots den strikta formen som dikterna har. Dessutom har inga djupgående tematiska analyser av dikterna gjorts så vitt jag kunnat utröna. Detta är skissartat det jag vill problematisera i min uppsats.

Tage Aurell (1895-1976) var en originell författare som fick ett senkommet erkännande på 1940-talet. Kortromaner han gav ut på 1930-talet gick inte hem vare sig hos kritiker eller läsare. Varför?

Min uppsats syftar till attklarlägga vad det var som gjorde Aurell så egenartad. Det sker genom en noggrann läsning och undersökningav hansroman Martina från 1937. Det skerockså genom att berättelsen analyseras med hjälp av begrepp somlitteraturforskarna Wayne CBooth, Seymor Chatman och Gerald Prince lanserat och diskuterat. Jag vill också pröva vad för slags bok Martinaär. En roman, en novell, en berättelse på prosa? Genretillhörigheten är inte självklar.

Arbetet har lett fram till följande slutsatser: Martina är snarareen novell än en roman. Aurell är modernist men ingen vanlig modernist med intresse för den stora staden och livet där. Hans miljö är landsbygden. Inspirerad av främst Gustave Flaubert och Herman Bang är han också impressionist och har en berättarteknik som är karakteristisk för denna riktning: en berättare som håller distans, fri indirekt anföring, scenfragment, glimtar och antydningar, till exempel.Inget psykologiserande. Protagonisterna får avslöja sig genom handlingar och repliker. Närheten till dramat är påfallande.

Aurell skrev kortprosa och var extremt sparsmakad med orden när andra med framgång skrev tjocka ordrika romaner. Han ville inte skriva många böcker, bara några små, men de böckerna skulle vara bra, sade han själv.

I uppsatsen analyseras Harry Martinsons roman Vägen till Klockrike (1948) ur ett ekonomiskt perspektiv. Syftet är att undersöka hur berättelsens ramverk och de värderingar som uttrycks förhåller sig till en ekonomisk logik. Detta sker genom jämförelser med Georg Simmels The Philosophy of Money (1978) och Chrispoher Newfields artikel "What is Literary Knowledge of Economy?" (2018), såväl som en tidigare studie i Martinsons tankar och poesi av Johan Lundberg, Den andra enkelheten (1992).

Resultaten visar att huvudpersonen Bolle kämpar emot en ekonomisk rationalisering som gör honom arbetslös. Samma sätt att tänka avgränsar vad som faktiskt kvalificerar sig som ett yrke. De långa vandringarna som utförs av luffarna, vilka Bolle skall komma att tillhöra, innefattas inte i vad som kan kallas arbete utan luffarna blir istället kriminaliserade och sätts i straffarbete som bättre passar samhällets definition. Att handeln fungerar legitimerande visar även det hur en ekonomisk logik är essentiell för hur föremål såväl som människor värdesätts.    

Synen på pengar och andra eftersträvansvärda saker i livet skiljer sig stort mellan luffarna och resten av samhället. För luffarna är pengar av sekundär betydelse, ett medel men aldrig ett mål i sig. Istället sätt friheten främst tillsammans med saker i livet som de flesta tar för givet. Detta är i linje med Martinsons egen syn på samhällsutvecklingen, i vilken han anade stora faror, men från vilken han också beskrev en utväg i form av värderingar som kan sökas och uttryckas i poesin. Dessa värderingar återfinns även i Vägen till Klockrike.

This thesis studies the 1931 short story collection Portret [The Portrait] by the Russian author Leonid Ivanovich Dobychin (1894–1936?). My main argument is that the principal theme in Dobychin’s writings arises out of the complexities of human encounters. 

My approach is based on affirmative interpretations that I call “encountering” readings. They draw on critical practices developed by Boris Gasparov, who argues in his 2013 study of Pasternak Boris Pasternak: Po tu storonu poėtiki (Filosofiia. Muzyka. Byt) that the key to Pasternak’s work lies not in the dominant feature of their linguistic texture, but in the momentary states of everyday life that the author captures, and Henri Meschonnic’s Critique du rythme: Anthropologie historique du langage (1982). Meschonnic focuses on rhythm as an intrinsic aspect of the text that requires the reader to participate actively in appreciating the text as a work of art by following the interplay between rhythm, the active subject and what is expressed. Both scholars reflect a turn away from the linguistically informed theoretical approaches that dominated the academic study of literature in the twentieth century. 

Similarly, I approach Dobychin’s characters on the level of their personal conflicts and everyday lives by simulating an interpersonal encounter in an anti-theoretical search for meaning that is congenial to both the central theme of the stories and the way in which they reveal human encounters “beyond words,” as it were, both within the works and with the reader, through suggestive associations and not yet categorized, “precategorial” experiences in everyday life. 

The “unoutspokenness” (nedogovorënnost’)—i.e. reticence, a deliberate avoidance of explicitness that Dobychin’s contemporary critics ascribed to his writings and often disparaged as “incomprehensibility”—serves as a starting point for a critical discussion of both earlier research on Dobychin and theoretical approaches to literature more generally. In searching for a dominant formal feature, a ‘key’ or ‘code’, in Dobychin’s writings, earlier scholars have tended to describe it in terms of an anti-aesthetic. The alleged lack of plot, inner coherence and meaning is explained as deliberate, intended to performatively mirror the absurdness and inadequacies, the disorientation and loss of meaning in Soviet reality itself. In this thesis, I argue instead that there is no such lack or incoherence in Dobychin’s works. The “nedogovorënnost’” of his short stories is instead understood as an exact and purposeful way of conveying meaning through what is experienced and shared beyond words in a time that was overburdened with idealistic ideological discourses. At the heart of Dobychin’s stories are moments of fragile human interaction that underlie trivial dialogues and actions in banal everyday existence. The stories let the reader experience the sudden and unexpected human connections that the characters encounter in their everyday impressions. The contrasts and plurality of human perspectives thus perceived evoke a potential interaction beyond societal roles. These brief encounters are presented as something precarious in a Soviet society striving towards a single true ideology. Such a reading suggests that Dobychin is not so much a deliberately enigmatic author as a writer who aspires to express in words that which is profoundly wordless: the encounters between people outside of the ideological categories and discourses of their language.

Louisa May Alcott wrote Little Women in 1868 and the novel has been loved and praised ever since. Throughout the years, Jo March is the character that has been viewed as the heart of the novel, celebrated both as a tomboy and a feminist icon. In the novel, she is initially portrayed with gender-nonconforming traits, with strong ambitions of becoming a writer, and she longs for independence rather than to conform to the norms of femininity prevalent in the 19th century. However, Jo’s character arc takes a surprising turn when she marries Mr. Bhaer in the end, leaving her extensive declarations of independence behind. This essay argues that there is a question of literary ambiguity in the breakdown of Jo’s character arc, questioning the authenticity in her declared happiness at the end. It furthermore offers a psychological analysis of Jo March’s character arc by using Sigmund Freud’s concept of sublimation to examine Jo’s struggle with anger and internal conflicts, revealing that she redirects her excessive emotions into creative processes of writing and ultimately into marriage. The analysis further examines the discrepancy in the portrayal of Jo at the beginning of the novel and at the end, arguing for the “happy” ending as unconvincing and unresolved. Through close readings of the novel with support from Freud’s concept of sublimation, the essay reveals unresolved tensions withing her character that questions the conventional interpretation of Jo’s journey from tomboy to traditional woman. Never before has the character Jo March been analyzed through a psychoanalytic perspective, making this essay contributing to a more extensive dialogue on the unresolved nature of her story.  

Modernists have expressed their views on literature in various ways. Ford Madox Ford’s Ladies Whose Bright Eyes seemingly participates in a discussion regarding the value of imagination in contrast to reason. This thesis argues that Ford Madox Ford’s Ladies Whose Bright Eyes (1911, revised 1935) represents the imagination in ways that suggest that the value of the imagination is greater than the value of reason in order to show the transformative power of literature. The novel’s treatment of the imagination has didactic implications for teaching literary interpretation and for fostering a joy of reading. The present thesis aims to explore how the novel treats the imagination by connecting the novel to modernist discussions of the imagination in Wallace Stevens’ “Imagination as Value” (1951) and Stevens’ “The Irrational Element in Poetry” (1936) as well as to Ford’s essay on literary impressionism “On Impressionism” (1914). The thesis expands upon Max Saunders’ argument that the protagonist, Sorrell, is transformed into a man of imagination. The literary analysis is structured around Sorrell’s transformation, from a rational man living in blissful ignorance of the world of imagination to a man of imagination instructed by Dionissia on living with the imagination in the rational world, through faith. A joy of reading and autonomous reading motivation can be fostered by providing students with choice, cognitively challenging tasks related to commenting on and analysing the novel, and by training students to use quotes via the use of reading logs. The novel’s indirect treatment of the imagination suggests the transformative power of literature, which makes fostering a joy of reading seem all the more important as it may provide students with a gift that will last long after their school years are over. 

The purpose of this doctoral thesis is to analyze discourses of children, morality and gender in prose works for children and adults written between 1880 and 1910. Ten texts by Amanda Kerfstedt, Helena Nyblom and Mathilda Malling are studied. The main questions are: To what extent did writing for children or adults create different possibilities and restraints for the authors? Were ideas of morality and sexuality articulated differently in relation to children, women and men? What gender ideals were formulated through depictions of children’s upbringing?

By foregrounding the role of children and children’s literature, a new perspective on the period is put forward. The analyses explore how changing ideas about family, femininity and virtue affected the way women wrote and how the literary establishment received their works. Some other important topics are the debate on children’s sex education in the 1880’s, the function of childhood in discourses of gender and sexuality, and the role of confession in 19^th century society and literature.

Conceptions of children, gender and morality are continuously redefined in Kerfstedt’s, Nyblom’s and Malling’s texts for children and adults. Varying ideals, ideas and practices are compared in the texts, which creates a space for change and negotiation. In contrast to previous research, this thesis shows that Swedish children’s and adult literature around the turn of the 20^th century shared many themes and ideas. Although different aspects of the questions are put in focus, books for both audiences explore how a true man, woman or child should be, what defined a moral life and, ultimately, what it meant to be human.

The Coming Woman: Representations of Female Suffrage in Two Swedish Books for Girls

This article explores depictions of female suffrage and the women’s movement in two stories published for girls: Cecilia Milow’s ”Han eller hon?” (1892, Him or Her?) and Hedvig Svedenborg’s Hannas dagbok (1921, Hanna’s Diary). My aim is to analyze how representatives of the women’s movement are portrayed in the texts and how meeting these women affects the character development of the protagonist.

The article shows that both narratives associate the women’s movement with modernity. In Milow’s text, the main character has to find a balance between a modern, exaggerated version of female liberation and misogynist views of women’s subordination. Svedenborg’s novel, on the other hand, contrasts different types of female modernity and emancipation, giving priority to women who combine traditionally feminine values with political work as ”mothers of society”. Despite their ideological differences, both texts address the girl reader as a future political subject by incorporating explicit discussions of women’s rights in books for girls.

The aim of this article is to analyze depictions of gender and sexuality in sex education books for young children published in Sweden between 1965 and 2014. After describing the general trends in the publication of sex education literature during the period, the article discusses the narrative address and family structures, gendered descriptions of reproduction, and the introduction of assisted reproductive technologies and non-heterosexual parenting in the studied material. The majority of the sex education books portray white, two-parent families and focus on heterosexual reproduction. Men and sperm are normally described as more active and important during conception, and the reproductive process is often depicted from the sperm’s point of view. At the same time, there are books throughout the period that problematize gender stereotypes in reproduction and, from the late 1990s, heteronormative sexuality. This article also shows that verbal and visual descriptions of sexual intercourse were more explicit in sex education books from the 1970s, while books from the early 21th century depict a greater variety of families and assisted reproductive technologies. After the 1970s, sex education literature for all ages disappears and the books are more clearly adapted for different age groups.