Till det omöjligas konst bekänner jag mig, Gunnar Ekelöfs konstsyn : Relationen mellan litteratur och bildkonst i kommenterande texter och lyrisk praktik

Sammanfattning: This thesis, “To the art of the impossible I profess myself” Gunnar Ekelöf’s View of the Fine Arts. The Relationship between Literature and the Visual Arts in Commenting Texts and Lyrical Practice, looks into Ekelöf’s view of the fine arts in commenting texts such as literary and art criticism, essays, notebooks and letters. It also analyses his lyrical practice, utilizing close-reading and comparison as essential methods, with attention focused on the relationship between literature and the visual arts, named the interartial dimension. As a result of my investigation I can assert that his view of the fine arts is interartial. Furthermore I establish the fact that there are a large number of Gunnar Ekelöf’s poems that can be characterized as interartial, which means that there is a relation in the poems to other forms of art. My thesis elucidates primarily four poems: “Triptych”, “Samothrace”, “Laokoon” and “Joachim and Anna”. Five specific dimensions are uncovered, a concept being used to demarcate the different spheres of problems that are being investigated: above all the interartial and the metapoetical dimension, but also the gender aspect, as well as the dialogical dimension. Besides I discuss the mythological dimension. In all of the analysed poems an interartial dimension is to be found. But this relation does not automatically make the poem ekphrastic. For this denomination to be valid, both description and interpretation of the work of art the poem is inspired by must be involved. In only one of the four analysed poems this is the case. The other three poems I prefer to label iconotexts, a term suggested by Peter Wagner, because of their looser relations to different works of art. An important result of my research is the finding that there is a close link between the interartial and the metapoetical dimension, as well as the gender perspective. I also emphasize the aspect of reception.