Denna uppsats riktar ljuset mot en tämligen outforskad del av Stig Dagermans diktning, nämligen hans dagsverser. Uppsatsens övergripande syfte är att undersöka dödstematiken och förgängelsemetaforiken i ett urval av dagsverserna som återfinns i den postumt utgivna volymen Dagsedlar. Som primus motor används följande frågeställning: Hur uttrycks dödstematiken och förgängelsemetaforiken i Stig Dagermans dagsverser? 14 dikter har närlästs mot en teoretisk fond som utgörs av Sklovskijs teori om främmandegöring. Resultatet visar att dödstematiken uttrycks på olika sätt i dikterna. Beroende på innehåll antar tematiken en negativ, positiv eller ironisk ton. Med förgängelsemetaforiken beslöjas och främmandegörs döden, vilket ökar förnimmelsen av dödstematiken. En sådan främmandegöring kan sägas utgöra ett drag från den litterära samtid som Dagerman verkade i, där dikten var ämnad att medvetandegöra läsaren (jfr Lotass 2002).

This project revolves around the political part poetry that is printed in newspapers can have. It focuses on a Swedish tradition directly translated into “daily verses” where an author writes a political poem every day in a newspaper. How do a political agenda take shape in a poem written in a short period of time and published in a forum like a newspaper? With the use of an analysis and comparison of two separated authors with different opinions in three specific political areas these questions is answered. The authors are Lotta Olsson Anderberg and Caj Lundgren and the political areas studied are gender equality, international political relations and nationalism. The project finds three specific answers to the question. First with the help of tools like metaphors, quotes, rewritten source material and hinting of well known references the political poetry addresses the reader in a direct way. Second these poems use the rhetorical strategy of focusing on the absurd in the opposition rather than arguing for the own political standpoint, turning the tables in an ironic way. The third answer is also the help of a tradition within itself that helps the readers understand the politics. A subgenre understood with help of the forum and the fact that the reader knows the poem will be political just by the headline “daily verses”. This shows that the poetic form called “daily verses” is to be regarded as political poetry.

This study investigates the production of political meaning in the Scandinavian tradition of the dagsvers (newspaper poem), that is a particular kind of poetry published in daily newspapers, commenting on public debates and recent events. The dagsvers is a neglected literary genre in the history of Swedish literature. The often explicit political stance and message of the dagsvers separate this genre from many other forms of modern and contemporary poetry, and the present study focuses on this political dimension. I examine the uses of forms, themes and symbols in dagsvers published between 1949 and 2013 that give the poems their meaning and their political dimension. Furthermore, I analyse how the very newspaper medium contributes to and directs the interpretation of the poems. The main questions pertain to how context, such as the newspaper´s political agenda, and elements in the text create the meaning and function of the dagsvers. Analysing verse examples with the help of theories of Jacques Rancière and Lars Furuland, the study demonstrates how the context and the literary forms, themes and symbols impact the shape of the political dimension of the dagsvers.