Alfabetets användning. Konkret poesi och poetisk artefaktion i svenskt 1960-tal

Sammanfattning: The subject of this dissertation is the so-called concrete poetry that was written in Sweden during the 1960s and, to a small extent, in the 1950s, by Öyvind Fahlström, Jarl Hammarberg, Åke Hodell, Bengt Emil Johnson, and others. The study is focused on a discussion of the forms and the ways of writing that were explored, but it also gives an account of the aesthetic-historical context – of the expanded field of the arts in the 1960s, of the early avant-garde, of related forms of writing in earlier literature, such as pattern poetry.The readings are oriented toward different aspects of the texts, such as ’kneaded’ words, disruptive syntax, ’algorithmic’ forms and methods, visuality, and sonority. Two key concepts are ’artifice’ and ’materiality’, both of which indicate how the texts discussed complicate a view of poetry as ’pure’ expression of thought and emotion, or as representation of speech or language (in a restricted sense). These writings use the alphabet in an unorthodox way, and they transgress its territory by approaching other arts and other forms of ’writing’.If one of the aims of the study is to analyze the poetical forms and operations at stake, another one is to connect these to a modern ’media age’, and to discuss the impact of media technologies as well as new conceptions and theories of writing, information, and communication (for example, cybernetics) on poetry. This contextualization gives a specific meaning and value to the texts, and paves the way for a series of questions about reading, subjectivity, and political aspects of poetry.