I blodhager, dansehus og søvnsletter. Ellen Einans fiksjonsdannelse

Abstract

Ellen Einan (1931–2013) is a Norwegian poet known for her frequent use of innovative language that forms fixed expressions, codes or references to both religious and mythical rituals and symbols. She builds her imagery on folk beliefs, Eastern religions and old ancient myths and she weaves all this together into a fantastic poetic universe with its own mythology. In the present paper, I examine the possibility of reading her poems as an expression of the creation of fiction in lyric poetry. I consider the creation of fiction to be an extension of the creation of images (connected to the term “the imaginary”), where we acquire images and their interconnections with a fiction-constitutive power. In this view, Einan not only constructs images (or symbols), but also a new, fictional existence in her poems. My approach to Einanʼs work is closely linked to the fictional world theory and its use within the discourse of lyric poetry, as it is presented in the theoretical work of Miroslav Červenka. He assumes that the lyrical subject is at the centre of the fictional world of the poem and assigns a character-like position to it. Furthermore, I read Einanʼs complete oeuvre as an interconnected universe, as the thematic criticism proposes, and focus on how the recurring motifs and themes can enable us to identify Einanʼs fictional world.