Tro mig på min ort - oöversättligheten som tematiskt komplex i Bengt Emil Johnsons poesi 1973 – 1982

Abstract

This doctoral thesis departs from the idea that the poetry of Bengt Emil Johnson (b. 1936) could very well be described as part of a long lyrical tradition, rather than as a reaction against this very tradition, which is the more common view. Throughout the study, this basic notion is employed as a sort of interface, or method, upon Johnson’s development as a poet. This development departs from 1950’s neo-romanticist poetic ideals, moves along through the 1960’s “open art” and its heavy critique of con¬ventions, and into a 1970’s writing which is in many ways a synthesis of the first two. By elaborating on a notion which Johnson himself labels “untranslatability” – a term with many facets, one of which could be described as a kind of manifestation of Johnson’s own perspective upon lyrical tradition – this study points out vital parallels between e.g. ecology and semiotics, place and language, and between romanti¬cism, modernism and post-modernism. It also adds new perspectives to the fields of genre-study and versification. The study primarily focuses on the part of Johnson’s oeuvre which could be described as the synthesis (1973-) between a tradition based and a disruption based period. This conduct of things enables the pointing out of mutual factors between the seemingly contradictory ideas which pervade the two earlier periods. Generally, the analyses in the thesis focus on connections and similarities between a traditionally lyrical, and a dis¬ruptively avantgardist manner of writing poetry. Where others have put much thought into examining what separates these manners, this study searches for their common ground.