Uppsatsen ämnar att 1. Utföra en nykritisk analys av dikten ”Konferensman” av Birger Sjöberg, 2.Etablera och diskutera begreppet bildorienterad modernism, 3. identifiera ”Konferensman som ettuttryck för bildorienterad modernism. För att utföra en nykritisk analys på ”Konferensman” har dennykritik som etablerats av teoretikerna Cleanth Brooks och William K. Wimsatt använts. Dennykritiska analysen har försökt att identifiera olika typer av metaforiska och symboliskarepresentationer av sinnlighet och andlighet i ”Konferensman”. Bildorienterad modernismdefinieras i uppsatsen som den typ av modernistiska poesi som huvudsakligen är intresserad avmetaforen eller symbolen. Vidare definieras nykritiken som en typ av modernistisk bildorienteradanalysmodell. Två andra teorier identifieras också som bildorienterade analyser. Dessa är KjellEspmarks själsöversättande analys av modernistisk poesi, samt metaforkollage, ett begrepputvecklat av uppsatsförfattaren. Dessa två teorier, tillsammans med nykritiken, ses i uppsatsen somolika sätt att analysera bildorienterad modernism på. Uppsatsen identifierar avslutningsvismöjligheten att applicera dessa olika teorier på ”Konferensman” som ett tecken på att dikten kan sessom ett uttryck för bildorienterad modernism.

In this essay, I study how the artist is portrayed in the works of August Strindberg and Ingmar Bergman. I compare Strindberg’s novels The Romantic Organist (1888) and By the Open Sea (1890) with Bergman’s The Hour of the Wolf (1968) and Fanny and Alexander (1982). It should be noted that I’m focusing on the film manuscripts (“Filmberättelser”) of Bergman rather than the films.  My aim is to study how the works of Strindberg and Bergman correspond in regards to the artist motif. Strindberg’s influence on the works of Ingmar Bergman has been wildly recognized among scholars and critics for decades, but no extensive study has before been made on the subject of the artist.

This essay concerns on how my novel The Teacher was influenced by the Masters course I completed in Creative Writing at Linnaeus University (2012 – 2014). Basically, The Teacher is about a love affair between a teacher and a student. With an intertextual, comparative and structurally inspired method I examine the process of writing my text. I also examine how my work relates to the great changes of the Swedish school system in the early 1990:s: deregulation, decentralisation and management by objectives. These changes are satirised in the novel. The essay also deals the role of the city in its time, the school in its town, contemporary literary texts with corresponding thematic, the moral values in their time and overall existential questions about responsibility, guilt, acceptance, non-judgmental attitudes, forgiveness and being in the present moment. The examining part of the essay shows how these premises get a concrete expression in the main conflict, main theme, characterization, narrative and stylistic choices. The essay clarifies the satirical point of view that turns The Teacher into an ironical reflection on the Swedish school system after the so-called “kommunaliseringen” (communities taking over from the state). The essay also clarifies how grown ups abdicate from responsibility in the Swedish society and how people judge each other and cling to roles. For that reason The Teacher is relevant within its time but also and even more since it is about recurring existential questions about responsibility and non-judgmental attitudes.