Med utgångspunkt i de två generella riktningar som tidigare läsningar av Inger Edelfeldts romaner tagit – dels en som antyder en existentiell underton och dels en som framhäver ett feministiskt perspektiv – har syftet med arbetet varit att undersöka den konfliktfyllda relationen mellan existentialism och feminism i ”Det hemliga namnet” och sammanlinka denna med Simone de Beauvoirs existentialistiska feminism i ”Det andra könet”. Då de två separata läsningarna av ”Det hemliga namnet”, som prövade romantextens överensstämmelse med de två ideologierna var för sig, korreleras med ”Det andra könet” framkommer att de två centrala punkter på vilka Edelfeldts roman skiljer sig ifrån den franska existentialismen – nämligen att människan inte till varje pris MÅSTE välja för att leva i god tro och att gemenskap visar sig möjlig då människor möts i generös ömsesidighet – också gäller för Beauvoirs texter. Ideologikritiska läsningar av Beauvoir visar att dessa avsteg från Sartres filosofi är ett resultat av hennes kvinnobefriande strävan: en feminism som hävdar att det är kvinnans eget fel att hon inte kan förverkliga sig själv som subjekt och som cementerar henne som den evigt Andre i förhållande till mannen, kan nämligen inte verka emot ojämställdheten mellan könen. Således uppstår en konflikt mellan existentialism och feminism i såväl ”Det hemliga namnet” som i ”Det andra könet”. En feminism som inkorporerat en manlig filosofi har nämligen också införlivat kvinnoförtryckande värden i den egna frigörelsestrategin.

Intentionen med denna uppsats kan väsentligen uppdelas i två sektioner: att först undersöka hur temat ensamhet uttrycks i Inger Edelfeldts romaner med huvudsaklig utgångspunkt i Kamalas bok, och att sedan relatera detta existentiellt genomströmmade ensamhetstema till den filosofiska existentialismen i Jean-Paul Sartres tappning.Som hon beskrivs av Edelfeldt är människan oundvikligen fånge i ensamheten. Alla hennes ansträngningar att erfara gemenskap faller om intet och inför denna bistra verklighet genomlever människan ett främlingsskap emellan sig själv och omvärlden; en alienation som fullständigt omformar och snedvrider hennes uppfattning av sig själv. Som en röd tråd löper alltså ensamheten som ett grundtema genom Edelfeldts romanproduktion och blir i de senare verken allt mer framträdande. Det är följaktligen särskilt i dessa senare romaner som åtskilliga betydande likheter med den filosofiska existentialismen kan uppvisas. Människans obevekliga fångenskap i en utsatt tillvaro präglad av ensamhet och ångest – där befrielse annan än den funnen i flykten ifrån ansvaret (mängdförsjunkenheten) och i livslögnen (den onda tron) saknas – är densamma i såväl Edelfeldts prosa som i existentialismens doktriner. Den alienation som upplevs av Edelfeldts romankaraktärer kan på goda grunder relateras till Sartres Äcklet. I Edelfeldts verk uteblir emellertid människans tillblivelse som den större individen i det valögonblicket; det moment i vilket Sartre ser människans enda möjlighet. Slutligen överväger dock de textuella likheterna emellan Inger Edelfeldts romaner och den franska existentialismen, och därför föreligger alltså tydliga spår av nämnda filosofi i Edelfeldts verk.

Dissertation--München, 2001. / Bibliogr. p. 286-295.

Abstract The Poetics of Care – A Reading of Inger Christensen’s Brev i april   The Danish poet Inger Christensen (1935-2009) is considered to be one of the late 20th Century’s most important poets, not only in Scandinavia but also internationally. Christensen’s poetic works have been translated into a number of different languages, and for several years she was a candidate for the Nobel Prize in Literature. Christensen made her debut in 1962 with a collection of poems, Lys, shortly followed by Græs (1963). In 1969 she had her breakthrough as a poet with det. In addition to her six collections of poems, that apart from the works mentioned above in­clude Brev i april (1979), alfabet (1981) and Sommerfugledalen (1990), Christensen also wrote novels, essays, children’s books and drama.          This paper aims to be the first profound analysis of Brev i april taking into account the close intertwining between structure and content, significant in the oeuvre of Christensen, having at its core, in this her fourth collection of poems, the poetics of Care. The method is based on Martin Heidegger’s notion of Sorge, “Care”, and Maurice Merleau-Ponty’s phenomenology of perception in the concept of intertwining, the Chiasm, emanating from Dasein’s being-in-the-world belonging to Heidegger, together with the ancient myth of Cura and the motif mother – child, prevalent throughout the everydayness that constitutes the narrative frame of Brev i april. Through an interplay of close reading of Christensen’s poem and the texts of Heidegger, Merleau-Ponty and the myth of Cura, illuminating certain aspects connected to the notion of Care, the analysis leads up to an understanding of the widened and nuanced poetics of Care that permeates Brev i april. The paper is completed with a part including language and intertextuality, a way of extending the notion of Care belonging to Christensen, where language and world are woven together, and dependent upon one another.     (keywords: Inger Christensen, Brev i april, Martin Heidegger, care, everydayness, Maurice Merleau-Ponty, intertwining, Gunnar Ekelöf, language, intertextuality)

A paranoid and shameful reading of Inger Christensens novel Azorno.The contagious feelings of paranoia and shame played a vital part in my first reading of the novel Azorno, written by the Danish poet Inger Christensen. In this essay, I’m letting those emotions direct the ‘understanding’ and analysis of the novel. In earlier research the focus has been to comprehend what the novel ‘really is about’, and even though it has been mentioned that the form probably is a way to make the reader a visible constructer of  the novel’s ‘meaning’ the understanding has never been created by the affects that occurs during the reading. In doing so, I mean, a new and more subversive ‘understanding’  of Azorno is possible. Azornos is a quite peculiar novel which form builds upon an ambivalence, where the reader never can distinguish true from false, fiction from reality. This ambivalence is caused through the change of narrator that takes place in each chapter. The Chapters are first shaped as letters, where four women discuss who is the one that really knows Azorno, and then as notes, that seem to come from a diary and concerns the writing of a novel. The uncertainty increases when the earlier narrator is accused by the next one of being a liar, something that happens in every letter. In the notes the first narrator is told to be the pseudonym of the next one and so it continues. Thus the reader get the feeling of not knowing who the true narrator is – or if there is one. The accusations of lying and the paranoid attitude are contagious to the reader who gets the feeling that the text and its narrators are not to be trusted. Another affect shaping the text is shame, caused by the text’s seductiveness. The reader is held in the violence of the text by constantly searching for the truth but also repeatedly being deprived the delightful taste of it. At the same time, the reader is also starting to shamefully enjoy the feeling of being fooled by the text. In the article, I will use the theory of paranoia offered by Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick. Sedgwick understands paranoia as nothing different from knowledge per se and as a feeling that, when it’s shared, can be a useful in theories aiming to understand and deconstruct power. The positive consequences of acknowledging paranoia while reading is according to Sedgwick understood as something that, if it is taken seriously,  also can be a way to move towards possibilities and reparation. By embracing the strong and negative feeling of paranoia, the reader, I argue, has the opportunity to, together with the text, construct another narrative about the seducer Azorno – which is the name of the main character of the novel– and, the perhaps five, women who might be his mistresses.  When adding the acknowledgment of shame and using the theory of shame as a emotional power of keeping ’things in it’s ”right” place’, but also a feeling that – if it is shared – can work in opposite direction, since shame seen as a important experience also can make normative ideas visible. By admitting and sharing the shame sensed during the reading of Azorno, normative ideas regarding the relationship between the reader and the text, as well as standard ideas about mistresses and seducers, becomes visible and therefore also brought to a possible change. Thus, in the ending of the novel a new affect – more exultant – is achieved in the relationship between the reader and Azorno.

No description available.

Studiens syfte är att genom tematisk läsning av ett urval Inger Edelfeldts verk utforska frågor om hur psykisk ohälsa som litterärt motiv skildras och hur denna skildring kan kopplas till identitetsskapande i en samtida samhällskontext. Uppsatsens teoretiska utgångspunkt är Karin Johannissons kulturhistoriska perspektiv på psykisk ohälsa, Anthony Giddens teori kring modernitet och identitetsskapande, samt Zygmunt Baumans teori angående individualism. Studiens resultat visar att psykisk ohälsa som litterärt motiv ständigt är närvarande i de undersökta verken som genom osäkerhet inför identitetsskapande och självbild. Den känsla av osäkerhet, förvirring och maktlöshet som uttrycks sammankopplar Giddens och Baumans teorier om identitetsskapande, individualism och otrygghet som samtida fenomen till resultaten av den tematiska analysen. Den närvarande psykiska ohälsan bidrar på ett konkret sätt till skapandet av den egna identiteten. Detta väcker funderingar kring huruvida den normalisering av depression och psykisk hälsa som Johannisson framhåller i själva verket kan bidra till att identiteten skapad utifrån detta blir så stark att det hindrar tillfrisknande. / The aim of this study is to discuss the question of how mental illness is portrayed, and in what manner this depiction can be associated with the creation of identity in a contemporary social context, though analyzing a selection of the works of Inger Edelfeldt. Karin Johannisson’s theory concerning the cultural-historical view on mental illness, Anthony Gidden’s theory concerning a late-modern society as well as Zygmunt Bauman’s thoughts on individualism constitutes the theoretical basis of this study. The results show mental illness as a present literary motive as well as insecurities related to the creating of identity and self-image. The perceived insecurity, confusion and impotence that is present connects the theoretical stand points of Giddens and Bauman to mental illness and the creating of identity as contemporary phenomena as portrayed in the works examined. The present mental illness contributes in an explicit manner to the creation of the characters identities. This rouses the reflection that the societal normalization of depression and mental illness that is discussed by Johannisson contributes to the fact that the identity originating from this prevents recovery.

Thesis (doctoral) - Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München, 2003. / Includes bibliographical references.

This master's thesis explores the feminine subject in thirteen poems by the Norwegian poet Inger Hagerup (1905–1985). In the poems, the women appear as historically inferior to men. Part of this is explained by motherhood, which is described as a bodily condition that suppresses the subjectivity of the self. On the other hand, the pregnant subject becomes a symbol of Hagerup's transgressive image of women in that it distances itself from a maternal essence, an essence which Simone de Beauvoir also rejects in her philosophy. My close readings shed new light on the poems by examining the woman, her body and her eros. I will show that thematically, Hagerup performs a lyrical renewal of female eroticism. In the course of the poems, the female subjects extend themselves out of their current situation, towards transcendence. This image of women correlates with Beauvoir, even though Hagerup in one of the poems formulates gender as a role one is born into, as opposed to Beauvoir's perspective which implies that identity is created through action: one becomes a woman. I show that in Hagerup's erotic poems, the subject's body often functions as an expression of the subjectivity ́s inner will and language. In line with the thoughts of Hélène Cixous, the women's speech emerges from the corporeal, red interior. Together with the male lover however, the subjects are rarely transgressive. The subjects constantly try to formulate words and shout out their speech. At the same time, the writing process gains significance for them. Lastly, I look at Hagerup's portrayal of female artists in the portrait poems "Emily Dickinson" and "Karin Boye", where the subjects in the portraits succeed in this textual creation.

Denna kandidatuppsats undersöker hur kvinnans utveckling och sökande efter identitet har gestaltats i tre svenska utvecklingsromaner. Romanerna är Hagar Olssons Chitambo (1933), Inger Alfvéns Dotter till en dotter (1976) samt Therese Bohmans Den andra kvinnan (2014). Uppsatsen fokuserar främst på två teman i undersökningen av de kvinnliga protagonisternas utveckling. Dessa teman är relationen till det motsatta könet samt kvinnans egen sexualitet.