| dc.description.abstract | This thesis ventures to explore the problematizing of time and the theme of time in Tomas Tranströmer’s Östersjöar [Baltics]. Starting from Johanna Bankier’s identification of an underlying ontologically problem in Tranströmer’s poetry, I provide a close reading of the dialectic turns in the poem resulting from this problem. I see the problematic experience of linear time speeding towards the certainty of death (without any stable metaphysical certainty, traditionally provided by religion, in place) contrasted in the poem by visionary transcendence of linear time, into momentary experiences of ontological certainty and rest. This certainty and rest, however, is brittle and can be only fragmentary in the poem, which is in turn seen as an important part of how the poem understands itself to be historical. History and nature is confronted in the poem as something which provides respectively alienation and solace. The restless movements of the poem, from experiences of alienation by rampaging history and experiences of nature being relatively, blissfully, exempt from this ravaging of time, forces the poem to crisis, in part three. But it ends up providing, in part five, a sort of syntheses of nature and history, where botanical-historical knowledge historicize nature as biotope while sensory experience becomes impregnated with historical meaning. Current events bleed into idyllic nature: Historical consciousness by the Baltics during the Cold War is seen as something which undermines the current, given understanding of the sea to be synonymous with the Iron Curtain. The sensory experience of tap water tasting of iron is seen as something which points beyond the historical moment to the future, in preparing for future ritualistic encounters with nature. In extension of the theme of time, breaking up preconceived, stagnant notions and any notion of any borders being absolute, is seen as Östersjöar’s main poetic strategy. From this point the thesis ventures into exploring the importance of variety, breaking up, and heterogeneity in Tranströmer’s poetry. Variety and “varietas” is seen as positive, though sometimes troublesome, phenomena, providing life with dynamic activity capable of breaking up any stale gloom or ideology, in both profane and religious settings. Through analyzes and close-readings of poems from across Tranströmer’s oeuvre, with much attention given especially to the important poem “Epilog” from Tranströmer’s debut, the thesis musters its dissent to the reading practices of Tranströmer-authority Kjell Espmark and his “school” of thematic new-criticism. The confrontation ventures to uncover weaknesses in Espmark’s approach and argues for the importance of variety and heterogeneity in our general understanding of Tranströmer poetry, and most certainly in the case of Östersjöar. Finally, this is naturally tied into the importance of the understanding of time as problem in this poem. | |
