Book contents
- The Cambridge History of World Literature
- The Cambridge History of World Literature
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Figures
- Contributors
- Acknowledgements
- Introduction
- Part I Genealogies
- Part II Thinking the World
- Part III Transregional Worlding
- Part IV Cartographic Shifts
- 22 The Multilingual Local: Worlding Literature in India
- 23 Oceanic Comparativism and World Literature
- 24 Mediterranean Worlds in the Long Nineteenth Century
- 25 Antipodal Turns: Antipodean Americas and the Hemispheric Shift
- 26 The Region as an In-between Space: Tomas Tranströmer’s Östersjöar and the Making of an Archipelagic Nordic Literature
- Part V World Literature and Translation
- Part VI Poetics, Genre, Intermediality
- Part VII Scales, Polysystems, Canons
- Part VIII Modes of Reading and Circulation
- Part IX The Worldly and the Planetary
- Index
- References
26 - The Region as an In-between Space: Tomas Tranströmer’s Östersjöar and the Making of an Archipelagic Nordic Literature
from Part IV - Cartographic Shifts
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 17 August 2021
- The Cambridge History of World Literature
- The Cambridge History of World Literature
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Figures
- Contributors
- Acknowledgements
- Introduction
- Part I Genealogies
- Part II Thinking the World
- Part III Transregional Worlding
- Part IV Cartographic Shifts
- 22 The Multilingual Local: Worlding Literature in India
- 23 Oceanic Comparativism and World Literature
- 24 Mediterranean Worlds in the Long Nineteenth Century
- 25 Antipodal Turns: Antipodean Americas and the Hemispheric Shift
- 26 The Region as an In-between Space: Tomas Tranströmer’s Östersjöar and the Making of an Archipelagic Nordic Literature
- Part V World Literature and Translation
- Part VI Poetics, Genre, Intermediality
- Part VII Scales, Polysystems, Canons
- Part VIII Modes of Reading and Circulation
- Part IX The Worldly and the Planetary
- Index
- References
Summary
The essay examines the concept of regional literature with Scandinavia as an example. Advocating for regional literature as a promising working space between the too smooth space of globality and the overly strict confines of national literature, the essay suggest the archipelago as a concept that keeps the region open to the world and yet assembled, heterogenous and recognizable at the same time. After a discussion of the concept it is developed further by way of a reading of Swedish Nobel Prize-winner Tomas Tranströmer’s 1979 long poem Östersjöar (The Baltics). On the basis of the reading and with recourse to previous discussion the essay ends by suggesting six imperatives for working with regional literature.
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- Information
- The Cambridge History of World Literature , pp. 495 - 510Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2021