Gendering seekers and upstarts in early twentieth-century Finnish literature

The search for truth and spirituality, intertwined with the search for one’s self, has been a perennial theme in arts and literature. In some works of Finnish literature at the turn of the twentieth century, the figure of a person seeking for spiritual fulfilment tended to intertwine with that of the upstart (nousukas in Finnish). At first sight, it might seem odd that these two figures should overlap in literary works, but as I show, especially in early twentieth-century Finnish literature, such cases are not rare, given the wide range of meanings that the word nousukas would denote

Narcissuses, Medusas, Ophelias… Water Imagery And Femininity in the Texts by Two Decadent Women Writers

My concern is the way in which women writers whose work can be characterized as Decadent and/or Symbolist used the figures of Narcissus, Medusa and Ophelia, as well as the imagery of femininity and water. When analyzing this aspect of their work, I am looking at the ways in which these writers created and co-created the Decadent imagery, what strategies they adopted in their representations of woman and the construction of female subjectivity

Seekers of Secret Worlds in Finland’s Early Twentieth Century Literature

In my article, I look at Finland’s early twentieth century literature, concentrating on the work of two writers, L. Onerva (1882-1972) and Eino Leino (1878-1926) from the point of view of modern Western esotericism. As the central notion, I employ the concept of seekership, used lately by Nina Kokkinen vis à vis visual arts. The concept proves most viable when analysing E. Leino’s and L. Onerva’s literary œuvre and the mélange of esoteric, mystic, occult, spiritualist, theosophical and other trends. I give some background to the trend of seekership in Finland’s literature around the turn of the 19th and the 20th century, concentrating mostly on Leino’s work and considering the interaction of the “little” and “great” traditions, i. e. the local tradition of Finnish mythology as manifested in the folk poetry, and the tradition of European literature. In the latter section of the paper, I discuss L. Onerva’s work from the perspective of seekership, concentrating on her ways of gendering the figure of the seeker. My research enters in dialogue with the recent research on esotericism in Finnish cultural history, namely the current project Seekers of the New.</p

Digitaaliset ihmistieteet kirjallisuudentutkimuksessa

Viola Parente-Čapková: Digitaaliset ihmistieteet kirjallisuudentutkimuksess

Decadent New Woman’s Ironic Subversions: L. Onerva’s Multi-layered Irony

The decadent New Woman novel Mirdja (1908) by the Finnish writer L. Onerva (Hilja Onerva Lehtinen, 1882–1972) is permeated by irony. From the point of view of the eponymous heroine, the conservative bourgeois strata of the fin de siècle Finnish society with their nationalist zeal, their lack of understanding of art, as well as their hypocritical veneration of the ordinary country folk, are ironized in the novel. However, at the same time, ironic gaze is cast to decadent bohemians and their hom(m)osexual bonding, to male aesthetes who indulge in decadent effeminacy and “gender parasitism”, but despise women. The eponymous heroine, an aspiring artist, tries to appropriate the ironic, objectifying gaze of the decadent aesthete, but she is herself ironized by various narrative voices, characterized by the typically decadent dissonance, contrasts, paradox and ambivalence. I am going to show how, in Mirdja, irony, ludic, parodic repetition and e/Echoing function as devices of constructing the decadent female subject, oscillating between various types of acting and masquerading, and being confronted with ethical and political aspects of the surrounding world. I will look at the narrative irony in the text, as well as at ways in which the text ironizes various literary strategies, figures, motifs, ideas and whole genres, intertwining the rhetoric devices of irony with that of parody and intertextuality, so typical of the decadent mode. I am going to show how the multiple ironic voices as well as various levels and hierarchies of irony subvert each other and are supported by the devices of decadent poetics. </p

Dai romantici alle digital humanities. Breve profilo dello sviluppo della storiografia letteraria finlandese.

This study investigates ways of writing history of Finland’s literature from the beginning of the 19th century till the present. It outlines the specificities of writing literary history of a ‘minor’ literature for the public unfamiliar with this literature. These methodological considerations are framed by a critical overview of the history of  literary historiography in Finland. The study analyses the ways of defining Finnish or Finland’s literature, and maps various approaches to literary historiography over the last 200 years; contributions of scholars from outside Finland, mainly Sweden, English and German speaking countries, Russia and Italy are considered briefly as well. The overview is supported by a survey of critical debates on historiography within Finnish literary scholarship. The study is concluded with an outline of a prospective towards future developments.</p

Tutkija-kääntäjän katse kohdistuu saamelaiseen nykyrunouteen

Kyseessä on Kaisa Ahvenjärven väitöskirjan arvio&nbsp

Gli incantesimi nella poesia popolare finlandese e le sue testualizzazioni

The Kalevala and The Kanteletar are respectively the epic and lyrical collection of poems compiled and heavily edited by the folk poetry collector and philologist Elias Lönnrot (1802-1884). In this paper we present a more authentic form, the original texts of Finnish folk poetry, which can be accessed, for example, through the collection of the Suomen Kansan Vanhat Runot I-XXXIV ([1908-1948] 1997, Gli antichi poemi del popolo finlandese I-XXXIV), in which the majority of the original collected Kalevalian folk poetry has been recorded. Although genres, subgenres and topics in the field of folklore have enjoyed different status, one seems particularly interesting to us e.g. that of spells/incantations. It is not only because of the originality of this genre of ritual poetry, but also because it is apparent how nowadays its tradition is very active and productive in different cultural/artistic fields. Within this framework and with particular attention to the healing spells, we present translations of texts not only dating back to ancient material collected in the 19th century, but also from new sources, ranging from the musical field to the very recent spell against the Corona virus.</p

Miten kirjallisuus on maailmassa?

Turun yliopiston kotimaisen kirjallisuuden oppiaineen esittel

Colpito dall’ignoto. La narrativa come promotrice della lingua finlandese tra gli adulti con un background di im/migrazione

The project "Struck by the Unknown: Fiction as a promoter of the Finnish language among adults with im/migrant background" I lead at present is based on the presumption that literature can be incorporated in language teaching in a much more creative and versatile way than it has been done (with notable exceptions) so far. It claims that literature is language and much more: it is a key carrier of meaning in culture that opens a window to various societal phenomena. Literature can play a key role in learning both Finnish and about Finnish culture. The project is looking for a new way of engaging adults with im/migrant background in Finnish society by teaching them the language and culture through literature. The project team includes both native and non-native Finnish speakers and is based on both on interaction with participants and on research.</p