Överskridandets strategier : lyrisk romankonst och dess uttryck hos Rosendahl, Trotzig och Lillpers

Sammanfattning: In this thesis I describe and analyse the concept of ”lyrical novel” in relation to concrete textual examples. Referring to Waismann’s open texture (porösität) and Wittgensteins ”family resemblance” I study texts that resemble each other although their lyrical features may not be identical. The language itself attracts attention in these novels. They often involve static descriptions, structural patterns of meaningful contrasts and symmetries, visionary or epiphanic moments. A conventional plot is often fragmented or attenuated. I argue that a reader of a lyrical novel imagines a lyrical language game, thereby focusing details and nuances in the prose text that might otherwise be neglected. After a short survey of the Romantic roots of the lyrical novel, I give various examples of novels from the period 1850-1950. The purpose is to give a broad description of lyrical techniques. The last three chapters consist of more detailed analyses of some Swedish novels from the latter part of the 20th century. In Sven Rosendahl’s Gud Fader och tattaren the narrative progression of the story is broken in lyrical passages of great strength. Some of them can be regarded as epiphanic moments. Birgitta Trotzig is in Dykungens dotter trying to loose the ties of sequential time, giving an all-embracing view of the characters’ circumstances. A hopeful identification with the suffering of Christ is at the centre of this modernist novel, where borders between inner and outer worlds at times seem to be of less importance. The plots in Birgitta Lillpers’ three novels Blomvattnarna, Iris, Isis och skräddaren and Medan de ännu hade hästar are attenuated. There are allegorical veins, but events are seldom of dramatic intensity. The language is full of feeling, and a reader becomes aware of a kind of ”lyrical lingering”, when the author affords each passage a value of its own.