Minästä toiseen : Lacanilaisen subjektin syntymä Anaïs Ninin House of Incestissä ja Hélène Cixous'n Dedans'issa

The study approaches two modern novels using the conceptual frame of Lacanian psychoanalysis, especially the Lacanian notion of subject. The novels can be described as subversive “Bildungsromans” (development novels) highly influenced by psychoanalytic thought. Anaïs Nin’s (1903—1977) “poetic novel” House of Incest (1936) is a story of sexual and artistic awakening while Hélène Cixous’s (b. 1937) first novel Dedans (1969) depicts the growth of a little girl whose father dies. Both are first novels and first person narratives. Concentrating in the narrator’s internal life the novels writings break with the realistic conventions of narrative, bringing forth the themes of anguish, alienation from the world and escape into the prison like realm of the self. The study follows roughly the Lacanian process of becoming a subject. Each chapter opens up with a quick introduction to the Lacanian concepts used in the following part that analyses the novels. The study can thus also be used as a brief introduction to Lacanian theory in finnish. The psychoanalytic narrative/story of the birth of the subject and the novels stories can be seen as mirroring each other. The method of the study is thus based on a dialogue between the theoretical concepts and the analyses. Novels are being approached as texts that break with the Cartesian notion of an autonomous subject making room for a dialectics of self and other, for a movement in which the “I” builds an identity mirroring itself with others. While both of the novels recount the birth of a character called I, they also have a first person narrator apart from the character “I”. Having constituted the self’s identity, the narrator finds from inside of the self also an other or “you” – this discovery is the final clue to the coffin of the autonomous self. From the Lacanian perspective man’s great Other is the order of language, Symbolic, which constitutes the individual, the speaking subject. Using this perspective the novels are interpreted as describing the process of becoming a subject of the Symbolic; subjected to Symbolic order. This “birth process” happens in particular in the Imaginary register, where the self’s identity is built. In the Imaginary or Mirror phase the “I” mirrors himself with different others (e.g. with his mirror image and the family members, the surrounding others) learning to see his body and his selfhood both as familiar and strange, other. In the Imaginary phase the novels’ characters are also trying to deal with the opposite realm of the Symcolic, the Real. The Lacanian Real is not the reality “before words” but a reality left over from the Symbolic, aside of it but constituted by the Symbolic, to be deducted only from within it. In the novels the Real is experienced as a womblike state where the self is immersed in the other’s body. The process of coming a subject of the Symbolic is depicted also as a process of renouncing the “dream of the womb”, which, if realized, could only mean the non-existence of the subject, i.e. death. The study concentrates on analysing the novels’ writing, where meanings are constantly changing: “I” becomes you, the father becomes a mother, inside becomes outside. This technique enables also the deconstruction of certain opposing notions in the novels. The Lacanian point of view exposes language as a constantly moving universe where the subject has no more stability than the momentary meanings language creates. The self’s identity depicted in the novels is a Lacanian fixed identity, whose growth is necessary but opposes the flux imminent to the Symbolic. The anguish experienced in the novels, in the “house of incest” or “inside”, is due to clinging on the unchanging “I”. However, the writing of the novels shows how the meaning of the “I” changes constantly and the fixity thus becomes movement. This way House of Incest and Dedans, despite their pessimistic stories, manage to create an image of a new, moving subject.

Drag på parnassen. Två sextiotalsstudier. : Del I: Medelklass med mänskligt ansikte. Medelklassradikalism i fyra romaner av Christer Kihlman, Jarl Sjöblom, Marianne Alopaeus och Ulla-Lena Lundberg. Del II: Modernistdebatten. Sak, person och fält i en finlandssvensk litteraturdebatt år 1965.

The objective of my dissertation Pull (or Draught, or Moves) at the Parnassus , is to provide a deeper understanding of Nordic Middle Class radicalism of the 1960 s as featured in Finland-Swedish literature. My approach is cultural materialist in a broad sense; social class is regarded a crucial aspect of the contents and contexts of the novels and literary discussions explored. In the first volume, Middle Class With A Human Face , novels by Christer Kihlman, Jarl Sjöblom, Marianne Alopaeus, and Ulla-Lena Lundberg, respectively, are read from the points of view of place, emotion, and power. The term "cryptotope" is used to designate the hidden places found to play an important role in all of these four narratives. Also, the "chronotope of the provincial small town", described by Mikhail Bakhtin in 1938, is exemplified in Kihlman s satirical novel, as is the chronotope of of war (Algeria, Vietnam) in those of Alopaeus and Lundberg s. All the four novels signal changes in the way general "scripts of emotions", e.g. jealousy, are handled and described. The power relations in the novels are also read, with reference to Michel Foucault. As the protagonists in two of them work as journalists, a critical discussion about media and Bourgeois hegemony is found; the term "repressive legitimation" is created to grasp these patterns of manipulation. The Modernist Debate , part II of the study, concerns a literary discussion between mainly Finland-Swedish authors and critics. Essayist Johannes Salminen (40) provided much of the fuel for the debate in 1963, questioning the relevance to contemporary life of the Finland-Swedish modernist tradition of the 1910 s and 1920 s. In 1965, a group of younger authors and critics, including poet Claes Andersson (28), followed up this critique in a debate taking place mainly in the newspaper Vasabladet. Poets Rabbe Enckell (62), Bo Carpelan (39) and others defended a timeless poetry. This debate is contextualized and the changing literary field is analyzed using concepts provided by sociologist Pierre Bourdieu. In the thesis, the historical moment of Middle Class radicalism with a human face is regarded a temporary luxury that new social groups could afford themselves, as long as they were knocking over the statues and symbols of the Old Bourgeoisie. This is not to say that all components of the Sixties strategy have lost their power. Some of them have survived and even grown, others remain latent in the gene bank of utopias, waiting for new moments of change.

Vilijonkka ikkunassa - Tove Janssonin muumiteosten kuva, sana ja liike

Tove Jansson (1914--2001) was a Finnish illustrator, author, artist, caricaturist and comic artist. She is best known for her Moomin Books, written in Swedish, which she illustrated herself, and published between 1945 and 1977. My study focuses on the interweaving of images and words in Jansson s picturebooks, novels and short stories situated in the fantasy world of Moomin Valley. In particular, it concentrates on Jansson s development of a special kind of aesthetics of movement and stasis, based upon both illustration and text. The conventions of picturebook art and illustration are significant to both Jansson s visual art and her writing, and she was acutely conscious of them. My analysis of Jansson s work begins by discussing her first published picturebooks and less familiar illustrations (before she began her Moomin books) and I then proceed to discuss her three Moomin picturebooks, The Book about Moomin, Mymble and Little My; Who Will Comfort Toffle?, and The Dangerous Journey. The discussion moves from images to words and from words to images: Barthes s (1982) concept of anchoring and, in particular, what he calls relaying , form a point of reading and viewing Moomin texts and illustrations in a complementary relation, in which the message s unity occurs on a higher level: that of the story, the anecdote, the diegesis . The eight illustrated Moomin novels and one collection of short stories are analysed in a similar manner, taking into account the academic discourse about picturebooks which was developed in the last decade of the 20th century and beginning of the 21st century by, among others, scholars such as Nodelman, Rhedin, Doonan, Thiele, Stephens, Lewis, Nikolajeva and Scott. In her Moomin books, Jansson uses a wide variety of narrative and illustrative styles which are complementary to each other. Each book is different and unique in its own way, but a certain development or progression of mood and representation can be seen when assessing the series as a whole. Jansson s early stories are happy and adventurous but her later Moomin novels, beginning from Moominland Midwinter, focus more on the interiority of the characters, placing them in difficult situations which approximate social reality. This orientation is also reflected in the representation of movement and space. The books which were published first include more obviously descriptive passages, exemplifying the tradition of literary pictorialism. Whereas in Jansson s later work, the space develops into something that is alive which can have an enduring effect on the characters personalities and behaviour. This study shows how the idea of an image a dynamic image -- forms a holistic foundation for Jansson s imagination and work. The idea of central perspective, or frame, for instance, provided inspiration for whole stories or in the way that she developed her characters, as in the case of the Fillyjonk, who is a complex female figure, simultaneously frantic and prim. The idea of movement is central to the narrative art of picturebooks and illustrated texts, particularly in relation to the way that action is depicted. Jansson, however, also develops a specific choreography of characters in which poses and postures signify action, feelings and relationships. Here, I use two ideas from modern dance, contraction and release (Graham), to characterise the language of movement which is evident in Jansson s words and images. In Jansson s final Moomin novels and short stories, the idea of space becomes more and more dynamic and closely linked with characterisation. My study also examines a number of Jansson s early sketches for her Moomin novels, in which movement is performed much more dramatically than in those illustrations which appeared in the last novels to be published.

Heräämisten poetiikkaa : Lajeja ja intertekstejä Arvid Järnefeltin romaaneissa Isänmaa, Maaemon lapsia ja Veneh'ojalaiset

Poetics of Awakenings. Genres and Intertexts in Arvid Järnefelt s Novels Isänmaa, Maaemon lapsia and Veneh ojalaiset This doctoral dissertation focuses on Arvid Järnefelt s (1961 1932) novels Isänmaa (1893), Maaemon lapsia (1905) and Veneh ojalaiset (1909). The study applies the genre theory and concepts Alastair Fowler has introduced in his Kinds of Literature (1982). Fowler s theory of the novel is developed further and applied to Finnish realist novels. The generic analysis is supplemented by intertextual analysis, which is mainly based on the idea of specific intertextual relations as presented by Kiril Taranovsky. Generic and intertextual analyses form the basis for hermeneutic interpretation, in which attention is paid to the fact that the novels are written by the designated writer in specific historical and cultural circumstances. Instead of the author s intention , the study focuses on the realised intention , in other words the novels as they are published. Järnefelt s first novel Isänmaa is understood to be a classical Bidungsroman that depicts the socialisation of a young male protagonist. From an intertextual point of view, the novel appears to be a novel of conversion, too, due to the biblical allusions concealed in the depiction of the events. Furthermore, Isänmaa is seen to stand in an intertextual relation to Hegel s, Snellman s and Topelius s writings. Maaemon lapsia is argued to be a thesis novel, which persuades the reader to adopt a certain ideological and political stance, namely Henry George s view on the private ownership of land. The novel is modulated by the generic repertoires of fairy tale and tragedy. The mythical frame of the novel supports the thesis novel, as it gives universal validity to the particular events depicted in the novel. Maaemon lapsia also comments on the contemporary political debate on the relations between Finland and Russia by presenting the relationship as analogous to the relationship between tenant farmer and landowner. Veneh ojalaiset exhibits a wide range of genres. Comic, tragic and mythical mode is combined with, for example, family novel, romance, conversion novel and revolutionary novel. From a rhetorical viewpoint, the novel is an apology, which accuses society of generating criminality by means of unjust laws and procedures. The novel discusses the question of resistance to evil by using the themes of Faust and Job, as well as by confronting the philosophies of Epictetus and Nietzsche. The novel is a thesis novel, which disputes the possibility of violent revolution as a way to a better society and recommends passive resistance for an individual living in an unjust society. The poetics of Järnefelt s novels is regarded as the poetics of conversion, as all the novels in focus depict the protagonist s awakening to see the society in a new light, be it a patriotic vision of the reality or a conception of the unfairness of society.

Konstruktioner och valens : Verbfraser med åt i ett jämförande perspektiv

Det har knappast undgått någon som är språkligt medveten att finlandssvenskan och sverigesvenskan skiljer sig åt till vissa delar. Olikheterna återfinns på olika språkliga nivåer. Mest kända och omskrivna är de lexikologiska skillnaderna, dvs. skillnaderna på ordplanet. Betydligt mindre uppmärksamhet har ägnats syntaktiska skillnader, dvs. skillnader i hur satser och meningar byggs upp. För att öka kunskapen om finlandssvensk syntax initierade Språkvetenskapliga nämnden vid Svenska litteratursällskapet i Finland projektet Svenskan i Finland – syntaktiska drag i ett jämförande perspektiv, som pågick åren 2004–2006. Min avhandling har kommit till inom ramen för det projektet. Prepositionerna (t.ex. av, i, på, för, till, åt osv.) är så kallade funktionsord som har till uppgift att binda samman de mer betydelsetunga orden till satser och meningar. Den finlandssvenska prepositionsanvändningen skiljer sig i viss mån från den sverigesvenska, och ”åt” är en av de prepositioner som ofta lyfts fram som exempel. Finlandssvenskarna säger t.ex. ”han gav en bok åt Lena” i stället för ”han gav en bok till Lena” eller ”han gav Lena en bok”. De säger ”berätta något åt någon” (i stället för ”för”) och de säger ”ringa åt någon” i stället för ”ringa någon”. Ett huvudsyfte med min undersökning är att ta reda på hur pass stora skillnaderna är om man ser till samtliga belägg på ”åt” i ett material och inte bara till sådana som man fäster sig vid för att man vet att de avviker i finlandssvenskan. Undersökningen är korpusbaserad. Det betyder att jag letat efter alla belägg på kombinationer av verb och prepositionen ”åt” i rätt stora textmassor som finns tillgängliga i elektronisk form. Materialet ligger i Språkbanken i Finland och omfattar huvudsakligen tidningstext och skönlitteratur. Jag har använt mig av en textmassa på sammanlagt ungefär 40 miljoner löpande ord, drygt 23 miljoner finlandssvenska och drygt 19 miljoner sverigesvenska. Det materialet gav ca 20 000 åt-belägg att studera, och det visade sig något oväntat att ”åt” inte alls är vanligare i finlandssvenskan än i sverigesvenskan när det gäller skriftspråk, åtminstone inte i professionella skribenters språk. Om man kompenserar för att den finlandssvenska och den sverigesvenska korpusen inte är helt lika i fråga om genrefördelning och ålder, kommer man fram till i stort sett samma frekvens för ”åt” i båda korpusarna. För den närmare analysen av vilka mönster åt-beläggen uppvisar har jag först och främst utnyttjat konstruktionsgrammatik men också ramsemantik och valensteori. Konstruktionsgrammatiken är ingen enhetlig teori, men tanken om grammatiska konstruktioner är gemensam. Konstruktioner representerar allt från generella syntaktiska mönster till specifika mönster för språkliga enskildheter. Uppfattningen om vad som ska inbegripas i begreppet varierar, men definitionen av ”konstruktion” som ”par (eller konstellationer) av form och betydelse” är gemensam. ”Konstruktion” avser aldrig konkreta belägg i texter eller yttranden utan alltid det abstrakta mönstret bakom dessa. Och varje yttrande är resultatet av att en stor mängd konstruktioner samverkar. I min analys har jag utgått ifrån att beläggen med ”åt” kan återföras på olika konstruktioner eller mönster utifrån vad som är gemensamt för grupper av belägg. Jag har sett på vad åt-frasen i samverkan med verbet har för funktion i beläggen. En åt-fras är syntaktiskt en prepositionsfras och består av en preposition och en rektion. Exempelvis utgör ordparet ”åt skogen” en prepositionsfras där ”skogen” är rektion. Ur mitt material har jag kunnat abstrahera fram fem övergripande mönster där referenten för rektionen har olika så kallade semantiska roller. Åt-frasen kan i kombination med verbet ange mål eller riktmärke, som i t.ex. svänga åt höger, dra åt helvete, ta sig åt hjärtat, luta åt en seger för IFK. Den kan för det andra ange mottagare (t.ex. ge varsin kaka åt hundarna, bygga en bastu åt sina svärföräldrar, skaffa biljetter åt en kompis). För det tredje kan åt-frasen avse en referent som har nytta (eller skada) av en aktion (t.ex. klippa häcken åt grannen, ställa in digitalboxen åt sin moster). Åt-frasen kan slutligen avse den eller det som är föremål antingen för en kommunikationsaktion (vinka åt sin son, skratta åt eländet) eller en attityd eller känsla (glädja sig åt framgången). Utöver dessa huvudmönster finns det ett antal smärre grupper av belägg som bildar egna mönster, men de utgör sammanlagt under 3 % i bägge korpusarna. Inom grupperna kan undermönster urskiljas. I t.ex. mottagargruppen representerar ”ge varsin kaka åt hundarna” överföringskonstruktion, ”bygga en bastu åt sina svärföräldrar” produktionskonstruktion och ”skaffa biljetter åt en kompis” ombesörjningskonstruktion. Alla typer är gemensamma för bägge materialen, men andelen belägg som representerar de olika typerna skiljer sig betydligt. I det sverigesvenska materialet står t.ex. det mönster där åt-frasen avser mål eller riktmärke för en mycket större andel av beläggen än i finlandssvenskan. Också andelen belägg där åt-frasen avser någon som har nytta (eller skada) av en aktion är mycket högre i det sverigesvenska materialet. I det finlandssvenska materialet står i gengäld mottagarbeläggen för över 50 % av beläggen medan andelen i det sverigesvenska materialet är bara 30 %. Inom gruppen utgör belägg av produktions- och ombesörjningstyp dessutom en mindre andel i det finlandssvenska materialet än i det sverigesvenska. Dessa står till sin funktion nära den typ som avser den som har nytta av aktionen. De konkreta beläggen på överföring (ge varsin kaka åt hundarna) utgör en större andel i det finlandssvenska materialet än i det sverigesvenska (ca 8 % mot 3 %), men typiskt för båda materialen är hög kollokationsgrad (”kollokation” avser par eller grupper av ord som uppträder oftare tillsammans än de statiskt sett skulle göra vid helt slumpmässig förekomst). Största delen av mottagarbeläggen utgörs av fraser av typen ”ge arbete åt någon, ge eftertryck åt något, ge liv åt något; ägna tid åt något, ägna sitt liv åt något, ägna uppmärksamhet åt något”. De här slutsatserna gäller alltså skriftspråk. I talspråk ser fördelningen annorlunda ut. Typiskt för prepositionen ”åt” är överhuvudtaget hög kollokationsgrad. Det förefaller som om språkanvändarna har tydliga, färdiga mallar för var ”åt” kan komma in. Det enda mönster som verkar helt produktivt, i den meningen att elementen är i stort sett fritt kombinerbara, är kombinationer av verb och åt-fras där åt-frasen avser den som har nytta av något. Att någon utför något för någons räkning verkar överlag kunna uttryckas med prepositionen ”åt”: t.ex. ”tvätta bilen åt pappa, ringa efter en taxi åt kunden”. Till och med belägg av typen ”hon drömde åt honom att bli ordinarie adjunkt” förekommer i någon mån. Konstruktionen är produktiv i båda språkvarieteterna men uppenbart är att konstruktion med mottagare har tolkningsföreträde i vissa fall i finlandssvenskan: ”Filip skrev ett brev åt sin syster” tolkas av sverigesvenskar som att Filip skrev brevet för systerns räkning, medan finlandssvenskar överlag uppenbarligen tolkar det som att Filip skrev till sin syster, att systern var mottagare av brevet. Ungefär 20 % av alla belägg i båda materialen representerar fall där ”åt” utgör partikel. Verb och ”åt” är närmare förbundna med varandra än när ”åt” utgör normal preposition. Exempel på partikelbelägg är ”han kom inte åt strömbrytaren, det gick åt mängder med saft, landet får dra åt svångremmen, de roffade åt sig de bästa platserna”. Också partikelmaterialet ser på ett generellt plan väldigt lika ut i båda språkvarieteterna. Den största skillnaden uppvisar den reflexiva typen ”roffa åt sig”. Medan typen är mycket homogen i det sverigesvenska materialet är variationen större i det finlandsvenska. Dels uppträder fler verb i kombinationen (han köpte åt sig ett par jeans), dels vacklar ordföljden (han nappade åt sig ett paraply ~ han nappade ett paraply åt sig). Att ”åt” används mer i vissa funktioner i finlandsvenskan brukar förklaras med påverkan från finskans allativ (ändelsen -lle: hän antoi kirjan Astalle > hon gav en bok åt Asta). Allt tyder dock på att den finlandssvenska åt-användningen delvis är en relikt. I äldre sverigesvenska källor träffar man på ”åt” i sådana kontexter som numera är typiska för finlandsvenskan. Det finlandssvenska språkområdet ligger ute i periferin i relation till det språkliga centrum som förändringar sprider sig från (för svenskans del främst Stockholmstrakten) och typiskt för perifera områden är att de uppvisar ålderdomliga drag också när inga kontaktfenomen spelar in. Allativen kan naturligtvis ha bidragit till att bevara användningen av ”åt” i finlandssvenskan. Att det är just ”åt” som används” beror antagligen på att prepositionen har flest funktioner gemensamt med allativen rent kognitivt om man jämför med de betydligt mer frekventa prepositionerna ”till” och ”för”. Uppenbart är också att åt-användningen därtill lever sitt eget liv i finlandssvenskan. I vissa varieteter av finlandssvenska kan man t.ex. höra yttranden av typ ”alla fiskarna dog åt dom”. Som språklig enskildhet har det ingen finsk förebild med allativ. Yttrandet är ett exempel på töjning av en svensk konstruktion. Modell finns dels i det mönster där åt avser den som har nytta eller skada av något, dels i relationell användning av ”åt”: han är hantlangare åt Eriksson ~ han är Erikssons hantlangare. Vid språkkontakt är det överlag konstruktioner som har förebild i det låntagande språket som lånas in från det långivande språket, medan konstruktioner som saknar förebild är betydligt mindre benägna att vinna insteg.

Lumometsän syli : Anni Swanin satusymbolismi 1896-1923

Lumometsän syli, Anni Swanin satusymbolismi 1896-1923 on suomenkielisen satukirjallisuuden poetiikkaa ja 1900-luvun alun modernia naiseutta selvittävä feministiseen tutkimustraditioon liittyvä tutkimus. Sen kohteena ovat lasten- ja nuortenkirjailija Anni Swanin (1875-1958) satukokoelmat vuosilta 1901-1923 ja Uusi Suometar -lehden sadunomaiset novellit vuosilta 1896-1904. Tutkimus tuo uutta tietoa lastenkirjallisuuden osalta 1900-luvun alun modernin ihmisen problematiikasta. Se sisältää naissubjektin kehityskaaren ja sisäisen kasvun kohti naistaiteilijuutta. Yksityiskohtaisen tarkastelun kohteina ovat sadut Veli ja sisar (1917), Ihmekukka (1905), Marjaanan helmikruunu (1912), Aaltojen salaisuus (1901), Jääkukka (1905), Tyttö ja kuolema (1917), Merenkuningatar ja hänen poikansa (1905), Lumolinna (1905) ja Tarina Kultasirkasta (1901). Tutkimuksessa tarkastellaan Swanin satujen poeettista kieltä ja naiseuden tematiikkaa ranskalaisen postmodernin ajan feministisen viitekehyksen valossa. Siinä keskeisiä ovat Julia Kristevan psykoanalyyttispohjaiset näkemykset ja Hélène Cixous´n sekä Luce Irigarayn ajatukset feminiinisestä kirjoituksesta. Sadut kontekstualisoidaan ajankohdan symbolistiseen taidevirtaukseen ja Suomen taiteen kultakauteen. Satuja tulkitaan naiskirjailijan lajina ja erityisenä naisen metaforisen ilmaisun muotona. Satujen feministinen lukutapa purkaa perinteisiä lukemiskonventioita ja merkitsee satutekstin lukemista "toisin". Se avaa varhaista modernia naiseutta ja sille ominaista naisen ilmaisukielen erityisyyttä sekä mykkää ei-kielellistä, melankolian ilmaisua. Tutkimus tuo esiin uudenlaisen naiskirjailijan aistimusvoimaisen kielen. Swanin satusymbolismi on luonnon kauneuden synesteettista ja aistimusvoimaista kerrontaa, jolle on luonteenomaista aistiestetiikka, metaforisuus, metonymisyys ja metamorfoosit. Swan vahvistaa osaltaan naisen sankaruutta, omaa ilmaisukieltä ja ääntä. Tuloksena paljastuu satuperinteeseen verrattuna uudenlaisia tyttöyden, äitiyden, naistaiteilijuuden ja perheen malleja ja niiden representaatioita. Satumallit osoittautuvat aikanaan moderneiksi tyttösankareiksi, osin ambivalenteiksi uudenlaista naiseutta ja suhteessa oloa heijastaviksi ja ovat siten varhaisia feministisen sadun tunnusmerkkejä. Tutkimus selvittää, miten Swan rakentaa omaperäisen satusymboliikan. Satumetsä on luonnonkauniin suomalaismetsän symbolinen mielenmaisema ja samanaikaisesti sadun myyttis-symbolinen topos. Swanin luontokäsitys sisältää luonnonsuojelun ja varhaisen ekokriittisen näkemyksen. Tutkimus osoittaa Swanin satujen kytkeytyvän 1900-luvun alun modernismiin ja Suomen taiteen kultakauteen. Swan on suomenkielisen symbolistisen taidesadun kehittäjä ja feministisen sadun aloittaja.

Rauta ja Ristilukki : Vilho Helasen salapoliisiromaanisarja

Vilho Helanen (1899 1952) was a right-wing opinion leader in interwar Finland. But following the Second World War, the political situation in the country changed dramatically, and Helanen lost his job as well as his influential social station. He began to write detective fiction, and between 1946 and 1952 published seven novels (one had already been published in 1941). The novels protagonist is Kaarlo Rauta, a lawyer who acts as a private investigator. This doctoral dissertation analyzes the Rauta series from three different points of view. It investigates the extent to which the author s life and his strong political background appears in the series. The study also situates the series within Finnish society during and after the war. Finally, the study examines the Rauta series in terms of the genre conventions of detective fiction, that is, the study compares the Rauta series with other Finnish crime fiction and international crime fiction written during the 1940s. The Iron and The Cross Spider uses the term citizenship education when analyzing how Helanen implicitly continued his political teaching when writing crime fiction. The series includes a didactic register, which instructs the middle class in appropriate behaviour and manners, and the social roles entailed by gender. A special area of focus in this didacticism are norms of correct masculinity and femininity. The study devotes specific attention to the status of character in the series. The masculine detective and his beautiful wife are prominent, as is the fictive community and the tensions that criss-cross it. After the war, the Rauta series takes on a positive tone. Men can earn their place in society by fighting at the front, and after the war a homosocial bond exists between all the former soldiers. Women are shut out of the war experience. The detective hero has served in the war, but he is physically and psychologically untouched by it. The community is threatened by artists and immoral bohemians, but not the working class. Artists have affairs outside of marriage and abnormal sexual habits. The members of the upper class are also described as immoral in the series. Sadistic sexuality is often characteristic of the criminals, who are mostly femme fatales in the fashion of hard-boiled detective stories and film noir. Also, strong feelings have a negative connotation in the series, and showing them is forbidden behaviour. Men become criminals when they are insufficiently masculine or when they have not carried out their duty by fighting in the war. Helanen portrayed the communists, his political opponents from the 1930s, as criminals in his post-war series, but they were not openly represented as Russians or communists. Instead, Helanen used the cross spider as their symbol, a symbol which the readers of the time would recognize.

Groteski suomalaisessa kirjallisuudessa : Neljä tapaustutkimusta

The grotesque in Finnish literature. Four case studies The topic of the dissertation is the grotesque in Finnish literature. The dissertation is twofold. Firstly, it focuses on the genre tradition of the grotesque, especially its other main branch, which has been named, following in Bakhtin s footsteps, subjective ( chamber ) grotesque, to be distinguished from carnivalistic ( public square ) grotesque. Secondly, the dissertation analyses and interprets four fictional literary works within the context of the grotesque genre, constructed on the basis of previous research and literature. These works are the novel Rakastunut rampa (1922) by Joel Lehtonen, the novel Prins Efflam (1953, transl. into Finnish as Kalastajakylän prinssi) by Sally Salminen, the short story Orjien kasvattaja (1965) by Juhani Peltonen, and the novel Veljeni Sebastian (1985) by Annika Idström. What connects these stirring novels, representing early or full modernism, is the supposition that they belong to the tradition of the subjective grotesque, not only due to occasional details, but also in a more comprehensive manner. The premises are that genre is a significant part of the work and that reading a novel in the context of the genre tradition adds something essential to the interpretation of individual texts and reveals meanings that might otherwise go unnoticed. The main characteristic of the grotesque is breaking the norm. This is accomplished through different means: degradation, distortion, inversion, combination, exaggeration and multiplication. The most significant strategy for breaking the norm is incongruence: the grotesque combines conflicting or mutually exclusive categories and elements on different levels. Simultaneously, the grotesque unravels categorisations and questions our way of perceiving the world. The grotesque not only poses a threat to one s identity, but can also pose a threat to the cognitive process. An analysis of the fictional works is presented as case studies of each chosen work as a whole. The analysis is based on the method of close reading, which draws on both classical and postclassical narratology, and the analysis and interpretation are expanded within the genre tradition of the grotesque. The grotesque is also analysed in terms of its relationship to the neighbouring categories and genre traditions, such as the tragic, the sublime, the horror story and the coming-of-age story. This dissertation shows how the grotesque is constructed repeatedly on deviations from the norm as well as on incongruence, also in the works analysed, and how it stratifies in these novels on and between different levels, such as the story, text, narration, composition and the world of the novels. In all the works analysed, the grotesque reduces and subverts. Again and again it reveals different sides of humanity stripped of idealisation and glorification. The dissertation reveals that Finnish literature is not a solitary island, even regarding the grotesque, for it continues and offers variations of the common tradition of grotesque literature, and likewise draws on grotesque visual arts. This dissertation is the first monograph in Finnish literature research focusing on the subjective grotesque.

Le naturalisme finlandais : Une conception entropique du quotidien

Le naturalisme finlandais. Une conception entropique du quotidien. Finnish Naturalism. An Entropic Conception of Everyday Life. Nineteenth century naturalism was a strikingly international literary movement. After emerging in France in the 1870s, it spread all over Europe including young, small nations with a relatively recent literary tradition, such as Finland. This thesis surveys the role and influence of French naturalism on the Finnish literature of the 1880s and 1890s. On the basis of a selection of works of six Finnish authors (Juhani Aho, Minna Canth, Kauppis-Heikki, Teuvo Pakkala, Ina Lange and Karl August Tavaststjerna), the study establishes a view of the main features of Finnish naturalism in comparison with that of French authors, such as Zola, Maupassant and Flaubert. The study s methodological framework is genre theory: even though naturalist writers insisted on a transparent description of reality, naturalist texts are firmly rooted in general generic categories with definable relations and constants on which European novels impose variations. By means of two key concepts, entropy and everyday life , this thesis establishes the parameters of the naturalist genre. At the heart of the naturalist novel is a movement in the direction of disintegration and confusion, from order to disorder, from illusion to disillusion. This entropic vision is merged into the representation of everyday life, focusing on socially mediocre characters and discovering their miseries in all their banality and daily grayness. By using Mikhail Bakhtin s idea of literary genres as a means of understanding experience, this thesis suggests that everyday life is an ideological core of naturalist literature that determines not only its thematic but also generic distinctions: with relation to other genres, such as to Balzac s realism, naturalism appears primarily to be a banalization of everyday life. In idyllic genres, everyday life can be represented by means of sublimation, but a naturalist novel establishes a distressing, negative everyday life and thus strives to take a critical view of the modern society. Beside the central themes, the study surveys the generic blends in naturalism. The thesis analyzes how the coalition of naturalism and the melodramatic mode in the work of Minna Canth serves naturalisms ambition to discover the unconscious instincts underlying daily realities, and how the symbolic mode in the work of Juhani Aho duplicates the semantic level of the apparently insignificant, everyday naturalist details. The study compares the naturalist novel to the ideological novel (roman à these) and surveys the central dilemma of naturalism, the confrontation between the optimistic belief in social reform and the pessimistic theory of determinism. The thesis proposes that the naturalist novel s contribution to social reform lies in its shock effect. By means of representing the unpleasant truth the entropy of everyday life it aims to scandalize the reader and make him aware of the harsh realities that might apply also to him.

Kouluromaanien opettajakuva 1930-luvulta 1990-luvulle : ihanteellisia, kapinallisia ja oman tien kulkijoita

The aim of this research is to define what kind of characters and images of teachers appear in Finnish school novels describing social changes and educational political reform from the 1930s to the 1990s written by teachers, particularly grammar school teachers. As comparison material, I use school novels written by Swedish school teachers, in which the changes in Swedish society and educational system and their expressions in the characters of teachers of the school novels are studied. The main focus of my study is centred particularly on school novels in which the images of grammar school teachers are described during times of school reform. From these starting points, the main objectives of the study are novels written by Finnish school teachers Anneli Toijala and Sampo Haahtela and Swedish school teacher Hugo Swensson, who was inspired by Haahtela. The research is qualitative multidisciplinary case analysis. The research method is content analysis, and the approach is hermeneutic. The research is divided into eight main chapters. After the introduction I introduce the essential concepts of my research. In the third main chapter I define the research function. In that context, besides the research objectives, I introduce former research on character description in literature, I define the methodological solutions with grounds and present the research material. Both literary research methods and sociological terminology are applied in the research alongside with pedagogical research. The research results show that images of teachers are diverse. At one end of the spectrum these represent immature pictures of teachers withdrawn into the routines of everyday life; at the other, they advance and reflect the reformist teacher. This becomes clearly evident when comparing the teacher "monsters" of the classic authors to the educational optimists at the end of the 20th century. The results show that the images of teachers in school novels are almost without exception coherent, psychologically credible and consistent, and hardly any different from the images of teachers in the Swedish school novels used as comparison material. On the contrary, plenty of similarities are found. The comprehensive school reform, educational political discourse and teachers' feelings are realistically clarified in the school novels that describe the period. Keywords: literature image, school reform, school novel, teacher image, reflection, internal co-operation in school

Discursive Matrixes of Motherhood : Cultivating Decency and Emotion in Finnish and French Mother-talk

Discursive Matrixes of Motherhood examines women's discourse on their experiences of new motherhood in Finland and France. It sets out from two culturally prevalent turns of speech observed in different social forums: in conversations amongst mothers with tertiary education and in the print media. The pool of data includes: 30 interviews, 8 autobiographically inspired novels and 80 items from women's magazines. With instruments loaned from the toolbox of rhetorical analysis, the recurrence of certain expressions or clichés is analyzed with regard to the national, cultural, biographical, political and daily contexts and settings in which the speaking subjects are immersed. "Staying at home is such a short and special time", the first expression under scrutiny, caught the sociological eye because of its salience in Finland and because it appeared as contradictory with a core characteristic of the Finnish context:long family leave. The cliché was found to function as a discursive micromechanism which swept mothers' 'complaints' under the proverbial carpet. Proper emotions and decency in mother-talk thereby appear as collective achievements. An opposite phenomenon - that of the scaling up of rewards procured by children - was also discerned in the data. Indeed, the French expression "Profiter de mon enfant" ["making the most of my child"/"enjoying my child"] is interpreted as a crystallization of a hedonist ethos of motherhood in everyday language. Secondly, the recurrence of this utterance is analyzed in the light of a requisite located in child-rearing expert literature: that of pleasure that women should take in mothering. Hence, one of the rules found to structure the discursive matrixes of motherhood is the laudability and audibility of enjoyment and conversely the discretion and discouragement of 'complaints'. The cultivation of decent matches between certain categories of emotions and certain categories of individuals also appears as a characteristic of discursive matrixes. One of the methodological findings relates to the fact that such matches may be constituted as sociological objects through the identification of recurrent discursive crystallizations in a given culture. Ideal matches may crystallize in turns of speech and mismatches can be managed through clichés. Becoming a mother entails an immersion in such a particular economy of speech. Key words: mothers, motherhood, transition to parenthood, family, emotions, morality, bonds, rhetorical analysis, discourse analysis, media analysis, France, Finland, comparative sociology

Fra jungledyr og cykelmyg til frysepunkt og længsel efter kærlighed Et strejftog gennem dansk litteratur på finsk efter 1945

Abstract (A journey through Danish literature translated into Finnish after 1945): Nearly 80 per cent of all literary translations from Danish into Finnish are done after the Second World War. These translations are obviously only a small selection of the Danish national literature, but nevertheless capture important trends and currents in it. Based on a selection of translated works, the article allows a broad introduction to Danish literature available in Finnish. It focuses on children's and youth literature, feminist literature and realistic, magic and civilization critical novels.

Profligate Descent : The Cultural Transformations of Evolutionary Narrative

This dissertation traces a set of historical transformations the Darwinian evolutionary narrative has undergone toward the end of the twentieth century, especially as reflected in Anglo-American popular science books and novels. The study has three objectives. First, it seeks to understand the organizing logic of evolutionary narratives and the role that assumptions about gender and sexuality play in that logic. Second, it asks what kinds of cultural anxieties evolutionary theory raises and how evolutionary narratives negotiate them. Third, it examines the possibilities and limits of narrative transformation both as a historical phenomenon and as a theoretical question. This interdisciplinary dissertation is situated at the intersection of science studies, cultural studies, literary studies, and gender studies. Its understanding of science as a cultural practice that both emerges from and contributes to cultural expectations and institutional structures follows the tradition of science studies. Its focus on the question of popular appeal and the mechanisms of cultural change arises from cultural studies. Its view of narrative as a structural phenomenon is grounded in literary studies in general and feminist narrative theory in particular. Its understanding of gender and sexuality as implicated in discourses of epistemic authority builds on the view of gender and sexuality as contingent cultural categories central to gender studies. The primary material consists of over 25 British and American popular science books and novels, published roughly between 1990 and 2005. In order to highlight historical transformations, these texts are read in the context of Darwin s The Origin of Species and The Descent of Man, on the one hand, and such sociobiological classics as E. O. Wilson s On Human Nature and Richard Dawkins s The Selfish Gene, on the other. The research method combines feminist narrative analysis with cultural and historical contextualization, emphasizing discursive abruptions, recurrent narrative patterns, and underlying continuities. The dissertation demonstrates that the relationship between Darwin s evolutionary narrative and late twentieth-century evolutionary narratives is characterized by reemphasis, omissions, and continuous rewriting. In particular, contemporary evolutionary discourse extends the role assigned to reproduction both sexual and narrative in Darwin s writing, generating a narrative logic that imagines the desire to reproduce as the driving force of evolution and posits the reproductive sex act as the endlessly repeated narrative event that keeps the story going. The study argues that the popular appeal of evolutionary accounts of gender, sexuality, and human nature may arise, to an extent, from this reproductive narrative dynamic. This narrative dynamic, however, is not logically invulnerable. Since the continuation of the evolutionary narrative relies on successful reproduction, the possibility of reproductive failure poses a constant risk to narrative futurity, arousing cultural anxieties that evolutionary narratives need to address. The study argues that evolutionary narratives appease such anxieties by evoking a range of cultural narratives, especially romantic, religious, and national narratives. Furthermore, the study shows that the event-based logic of evolutionary narratives privileges observable acts over emotions, pleasures, identities, and desires, thus engendering a set of conceptual exclusions that limits the imaginative scope of evolution as a cultural narrative.

Valistus suomalaisessa kirjakulttuurissa 1700-luvulla

The dissertation discusses the history of the book and the Enlightenment in Finland by studying the reception and diffusion of eighteenth-century books and by approaching the discourse on the Enlightenment in Finnish source material. The methods used relate to historian Robert Darnton s studies on eighteenth-century print culture and his analyses of the relations between print culture and society. The study is based on diverse eighteenth-century sources: books, pamphlets and dissertations, bibliographies, book auction protocols, parliamentary documents, estate inventory deeds, newspapers, letters, lectures, memoirs and commonplace books. By the end of the eighteenth century, book production had increased and secular literature had begun to challenge the dominance of religious literature. The books of the Enlightenment belonged to the new literature that found its way into Finnish book collections previously dominated by religious literature. Enlightenment literature is not a set selection of books but rather diverse works from different genres. Thus the study introduces a variety of printed material, from philosophical tracts and textbooks to novels and pornography. In the case of books of the Enlightenment, the works of French Voltaire and German Christian Wolff were among the most widely read and circulated books in Finland. First and foremost, the Enlightenment was an era of intellectual debate. These debates carried strong criticism of the prevailing systems of thought. Enlightenment ideas challenged the Lutheran society of Sweden and especially its sense of conformity. Contemporaries saw many of the books of the Enlightenment as vessels of new ideas and criticism. Furthermore, this kind of print material was interpreted as being dangerous for uneducated readers. Belonging to a certain estate and social class had a major impact on individuals reading habits and their acquisition of books. One specific social group stands out in the Finnish source material: the officers at the Sveaborg naval fortress possessed and distributed Enlightenment books more than the members of any other social class. Other essential social groups were scholars, the nobility and the clergy, who took part in debates concerning the ideas and benefits of the Enlightenment. In the Finnish debates at the time, the concept of Enlightenment involved three primary notions. Firstly, it referred to the French philosophers, les philosophes, and to their works as well as to the social changes that took place during the French revolution. It also carried the idea of philosophical light or the light of reason, in a sense similar to Immanuel Kant s writings. Most importantly, it referred to a belief in progress and to a trust in true knowledge that would supercede ignorance and fanaticism. Hence, it is impossible to speak about the Enlightenment era in the Swedish realm without such concepts as reason, benefit or progress. These concepts likewise marked the books of the Enlightenment in eighteenth-century Finland.

Analisi contrastiva delle modalità di traduzione in finnico dei Tempi verbali e delle perifrasi aspettuali dell'italiano

Analisi contrastiva delle modalità di traduzione in finnico dei Tempi verbali e delle perifrasi aspettuali dell italiano (Italian Philology) The topic of this research is a contrastive study of tenses and aspect in Italian and in Finnish. The study aims to develop a research method for analyzing translations and comparable texts (non-translation) written in a target language. Thus, the analysis is based on empirical data consisting of translations of novels from Italian to Finnish and vice versa. In addition to this, for the section devoted to solutions adopted in Finnish for translating the Italian tenses Perfetto Semplice and Perfetto Composto, 39 Finnish native speakers were asked to answer questions concerning the choice of Perfekti and Imperfekti in Finnish. The responses given by the Finnish informants were compared to the choices made by translators in the target language, and in this way it was possible both to benefit from the motivation provided by native speakers to explain the selection of a tense (Imperfekti/Perfekti) in a specific context compared with the Italian formal equivalents (Perfetto Composto/Perfetto Semplice), and to define the specific features of the Finnish verb tenses. The research aims to develop a qualitative method for the analysis of formal equivalents and translational changes ( shifts ). Although, as the choice of Italian and Finnish progressive forms is optional and related to speaker preferences, besides the qualitative analysis, I also considered it necessary to operate a quantitative one in order to find out whether the two items share the same degree of correspondence in frequency of use. In this study I explain translation choices in light of cognitive grammar, suggesting that particular translation relationships derive from so-called construal operations. I use the concepts of cognitive linguistics not only to analyze the convergences and divergences of the two aspectual systems, but also to redefine some general procedures related to the phenomenon of translation. For the practical analysis of the corpus were for the most part employed theoretical categories developed in a framework proposed by Pier Marco Bertinetto. Following this approach, the notions of aspect (the morphologic or morphosyntactic, subjective level) and actionality (the lexical aspect or objective level, traditionally Aktionsart) are carefully distinguished. This also allowed me to test the applicability of these distinctions to two languages typologically different from each other. The data allowed both the analysis of the semantic and pragmatic features that determine tense and aspect choices in these two languages, and to discover the correspondences between the two language systems and the strategies that translators are forced to resort to in particular situations. The research provides not only a detailed and analytically argued inventory about possible solutions for translating Italian tenses and aspectual devices in Finnish that could be of pedagogical relevance, but also new contributions about the specific uses of time-aspectual devices in the two languages in question.