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.

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