Skip to main content Accessibility help
×
Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-tf8b9 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-01T04:08:11.496Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

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

Debjani Ganguly
Affiliation:
University of Virginia
Get access

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.

Type
Chapter
Information
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2021

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Andersen, Frits. 2010. Det mørke kontinent: Afrikabilleder i europæiske fortællinger om Congo. Aarhus University Press.Google Scholar
Andersen, Frits. 2018. Sydhavsøen: Nydelsens geografi. Aarhus University Press.Google Scholar
Apter, Emily. 2013. Against World Literature. Verso.Google Scholar
Benjamin, Walter. 1969. “The Task of the Translator.” In Illuminations: Essays and Reflections. New York: Schocken Books.Google Scholar
Anderson, Benedict. 1983. Imagined Communities. Verso.Google Scholar
Beck, Ulrich. 2006. Cosmopolitan Vision. Polity Press.Google Scholar
Berg, Hubert van den, Hautamäk, Irmeli, and Hjartarson, Benedikt. 2013. A Cultural History of the Avantgarde in the Nordic Countries 1900–1925, Vol. I. Rodopi.Google Scholar
Bush, Christopher. 2017. “Areas: Bigger Than the Nation, Smaller Than the World.” In Futures of Comparative Literature, ed. Heise, Ursula K.. Routledge, 17173.Google Scholar
Espmark, Kjeld. 1983. Resans formler: En studie i Tomas Tranströmers poesi. P. A. Norstedt & Söners Förlag.Google Scholar
Ginsburg, Michal Peled, and Nandrea, Lorri G.. 2006. “The Prose of the World.” In The Novel, ed. Moretti, Franco. Vol. II. Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Kundera, Milan. 2013. “Die Weltlitteratur.” In World Literature: A Reader, ed. D’Haen, Theo, Dominguez, Cesar, and Thomsen, Mads Rosendahl. Routledge, 283–94.Google Scholar
Heise, Ursula K. 2008. Sense of Place and Sense of Planet: The Environmental Imagination of the Global. Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Hutcheon, Linda, and Valdés, Mario J., eds. 2002. Rethinking Literary History. Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Jensen, Elisabeth Møller, ed. 1993–98. Nordisk kvindelitteraturhistorie. Vols. I–V. Rosinante.Google Scholar
Massey, Doreen B. 2005. For Space. Sage Publications.Google Scholar
McMahon, Elizabeth. 2013a. “Archipelagic Space and the Uncertain Futures of National Literatures.” Journal of the Association for the Study of Australian Literature, Vol. 13, No. 2. https://openjournals.library.sydney.edu.au/index.php/JASAL/article/view/9860Google Scholar
McMahon, Elisabeth. 2013b. “Reading the Planetary Archipelago of the Torres Strait.” Island Studies Journal, Vol. 8, No. 1: 5566.Google Scholar
Melberg, Arne. 2008. Aesthetics of Prose. Bergen: Fagbokforlaget.Google Scholar
Pugh, Jonathan. 2013. “Island Movements: Thinking with the Archipelago.” Island Studies Journal, Vol. 8, No. 1: 924.Google Scholar
Ringgren, Magnus. 1997. Det är inte som det var att gå längs stranden. En guide til Tomas Tranströmers. Bokbandet.Google Scholar
Sondrup, Steven P., and Sandberg, Mark. 2017. “General Introduction.” In Nordic Literature: A Comparative History, Vol. I: Spatial Nodes, ed. Thomas A. DuBois and Dan Ringgaard. John Benjamins, 118.Google Scholar
Spivak, Gayatri Chakravorty. 2003. Death of a Discipline. Columbia University Press.Google Scholar
Stratford, Elaine, Godfrey Baldacchino, Elizabeth McMahon, Carol Farbotko, and Andrew Harwood. 2011. “Envisioning the Archipelago.” Island Studies Journal, Vol. 6, No. 2: 113–30.Google Scholar
Tageldin, Shaden M. 2017. “Untranslatability.” In Futures of Comparative Literature, ed. Ursula, K. Heise. Routledge, 234–35.Google Scholar
Tranströmer, Tomas. 1974. Östersjöar. Stockholm: Bonniers.Google Scholar
Tranströmer, Tomas. 1975. Baltics. Trans. Samuel Charters. Oyez.Google Scholar
Tranströmer, Tomas. 1987. “Baltics.” In The Great Enigma: New Collected Poems, trans. Robin Fulton. New Directions.Google Scholar
Tranströmer, Tomas. 2015. “Baltics.” In Bright Scythe: Selected Poems by Tomas Tranströmer, trans. Patty Crane. Sarabande Books.Google Scholar

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure [email protected] is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×