Stseeni poeetika ja eesti modernistlik romaan
Kuupäev
2023-12-12
Autorid
Ajakirja pealkiri
Ajakirja ISSN
Köite pealkiri
Kirjastaja
Abstrakt
Modernistlikeks on kirjandusteadlaste poolt nimetatud radikaalseid uuendusi kandvaid tekste, mis murravad end lahti eelnevast traditsioonist ja kehtestavad oma poeetilise maailmanägemusega uue standardi. Aga sõnaga modernism on ka püütud erineval moel piiritleda perioodi 19. sajandi teisest poolest 20. sajandi keskpaigani, mil kirjandus registreeris ja reageeris paljudele ühiskondlikele muutustele nagu võrdsuse ja demokraatia ideede levik, urbaniseerumine ja tehnika plahvatuslik areng.
Väitekirjas konstrueeritakse modernistliku kirjanduse lugemismudel, mis võimaldab stseeni mõiste abil tuvastada uute tajuilmade tulekut kirjandusse ning sama mudeli abil tõlgendatakse hulka eesti proosakirjanduse teoseid. Selleks esitatakse kõigepealt ülevaate eesti modernistliku kirjanduse senistest tõlgendusviisidest Noor-Eesti liikumisest 21. sajandi alguseni. Stseeni mõistele keskenduvas põhiosas uurib väitekiri modernistliku kirjanduse poeetikat narratoloogia ja fenomenoloogia meetoditega. Täpsemalt on töö fookuses nüansid, kuidas kujutatakse kirjandustekstis kehalisi tundeid, mida humanitaar- ja sotsiaalteadustes kutsutakse tihti ka afektideks. Enne afekti mõistele keskendumist on modernistliku romaani poeetikat analüüsitud peamiselt jutustuse mõiste kaudu. Aristotelese “Luulekunstist” alates on selle tähendust mõistetud tõenäosuse alusel: jutustuses juhtuvad ajaloomomendile tüüpilised sündmused ning seda asustavad ka vastavalt oma ajastu tüüpiliste iseloomuomadustega tegelased. Need piisavalt tõenäolised sündmused ja tegelased kujundavad fiktsionaalse maailma jooned, mis tunduvad lugeja jaoks piisavalt loomulikud ja motiveeritud. Kuid 19. sajandi teisel poolel ja 20. sajandi alguses tõusevad romaanižanris aina enam esile teosed, mille iseäraliku realistliku mõju seletamiseks ei piisa enam tõenäoliste ja tüüpiliste sündmuste ning tegelaste leidumisest teoses. Neis teostes ei ole tihtipeale esiplaanil tegelaste saatuslikke elumuutusi märkivad sündmused, vaid aina raskest määratletav afektiivne atmosfäär, mis ei kuulu üksikule tegelasele, vaid tõuseb esile pigem inimeste ning inimese ja looduse vahelise läbikäimise hämaraladelt. Üks viljakaid viise seda kirjanduse poeetika muutust mõtestada, on olnud analüüsida jutustuse vahekorda ühe tema võimaliku vastandi kirjeldusega. Väitekirja üks teoreetilise osa eesmärke on jutustuse ja kirjelduse vastandus uuesti läbi valgustada ja näidata selle paratamatuid kitsaskohti. Võttes arvesse jutustuse ja kirjelduse semantilisi vastuolusid, otsustatakse uurimuses kirjelduse asemel stseeni mõiste kasuks, mis pärineb Fredric Jamesoni raamatust “Realismi antinoomiad” (2013). Stseen esitab reaalsust põhimõtteliselt erinevalt kui jutustus. See võimaldab suuremat ligipääsu kehalisele reaalsusele ja jätab suuresti hõlmamata põhjuslikkuse dimensiooni, mis on jutustuse peamiseks sisuks.
Pärast sissejuhatavat ja teoreetilist osa siirdutakse väitekirjas eesti kirjandusloo teetähiste juurde, et neid stseeni mõiste valgusel värskelt tõlgendada. Näited eesti kirjandusloost on jaotatud kolme alamhulka, millest igaüht ümbritseb iseäralik ajalooline kontekst. Esimene näidetegrupp koosneb Jaan Oksa, Leo Anvelti ja Reed Morni teostest, mida kõiki on võimalik mõista fin-de-siecle’i kultuuri ilmingutena ning mille puhul on peamine küsimus inimsubjekti vitaalsusest, elujõududest ja seksuaalsest identiteedist. Jaan Oks on ehk sajandi alguse kirjanduses kõige edukamalt stseeni poeetikat rakendanud autor. Oks toob ilmsiks inimsubjekti olemuslik labiilsuse ja kehalise vastuvõtlikkuse oma ümbruse suhtes, mis laseb vaevalt rääkida isegi stabiilsest soolisest identiteedist. Leo Anvelt kujutab stseeni poeetika abil oma romaani “Viirastusi valges öös” peategelase Rein Endise maailma, kuid laseb peategelase saatusel kulgeda välja kristliku moraali repressiivsest toimest üsna intellektuaalse loogika alusel. Reed Morni romaan “Andekas parasiit” pakub näite teosest, kus problemaatilise peategelase afektide maailm on väga tugevalt ratsionaliseeritud ja stseeni poeetika võimalusi on seetõttu väga tagasihoidlikult kasutatud. Teine näidetegrupp käsitleb Viivi Luige “Ajaloo ilu” ja Mati Undi “Sügisballi” hilisnõukogude uue urbaniseerunud tegelikkuse viljadena, milles inimeste tundeelu on tugevalt mõjutatud globaalse läbipõimutuse tajumisest. Viimane näidetegrupp pärineb 21. sajandi alguse eesti kirjanduse ühest olulisest hoovusest, mis tegeleb teise maailmasõja järgses totalitaarses ühiskonnas tekitatud traumade kirjanduslikust kujutamise ja läbi töötamisega. Selles käsitletakse Ene Mihkelsoni, Eva Koffi ja Carolina Pihelga loomingut.
Töö põhijäreldused on, et stseeni poeetika võimaldab eesti kirjanduse puhul modernistlikust uuendusest rääkida väga erinevatel ajaloomomentidel. Veel üks oluline avastus on stseeni poeetika võimekus vastuoluliste, kuid eluliselt tähtsate fenomenide nagu seksuaalsus ja trauma kirjanduslikku kujutamisel. Väitekirjas jõutakse seisukohale, et stseeni poeetika mõiste töötab kirjandusteaduse jaoks kõige viljakamalt, kui narratoloogia ja fenomenoloogia meetodeid täiendatakse ajalooliste kontekstidega, mis võivad pärineda sotsioloogia, soouuringute, tehnoloogia jm ajaloo valdkondadest. See tagab modernistliku romaani poeetika mõistmisele tugevama aluspõhja.
In literary studies, the word modernism has usually designated radical literary works that have sought to break away from tradition and establish a new type of poetic vision of the world. But the word modernism has also designated the period of cultural history from the second half of the 19th century to the middle of the 20th century, when literature recorded and reacted to many social changes such as the spread of ideas of equality and democracy, urbanisation, and the explosive development of technology. This doctoral thesis develops a methodology for studying modernist innovation in fiction by using the concept of scene and uses it on various Estonian-language works throughout 20th and 21st century. First, the thesis gives as an introduction an overview of various ways scholars and critics have conceptualised and periodised modernism in Estonian literature, giving examples from the Noor-Eesti to studies in the 21st century. Next, as its main aim, modernist fiction is constructed through the methods of narratology and phenomenology with a special emphasis on the nuances of how bodily feelings (or “affects” as conceptualised in late humanities and social sciences) are represented in the literary text. At least since Aristotle's "Poetics", narration has been understood on the basis of verisimilitude: in the narrative, typical events occur to characters with typical characteristics of their era. In order to create a fictional world that appears natural and motivated to the reader, it is necessary to have sufficiently probable events and characters. However, among the novels that emerged in the latter half of the 19th century and the early 20th century, there are many whose realism cannot be explained solely by the presence of probable and typical events and characters in the narrative. These works often foreground not the events that signify the characters' (often dramatic) life changes, but rather an increasingly elusive affective atmosphere that does not belong to any individual character but rather emerges from the interactions between people and the obscure realms of human-nature connections. One productive way to make sense of this shift in literary poetics has been to analyse the relationship of narration with one of its possible counterparts, description. One of the goals of the theoretical part of this thesis is to re-examine the opposition between narration and description and to demonstrate its inevitable limitations. Having considered the semantic contradictions between narration and description, the thesis opts rather for the concept of 'scene', derived from Fredric Jameson's book The Antinomies of Realism (2013) and developed here further. A scene presents reality in a fundamentally different way from narration, allowing greater access to physical sensations and to a large extent omitting the dimension of causality, which is central to narration. After the introductory and theoretical sections, the thesis delves into a few milestones in Estonian literary history to reinterpret them in the light of the concept of scene. Examples from Estonian modernism are divided into three subgroups, each with its peculiar historical context. The first group of examples consists of works by Jaan Oks, Leo Anvelt, and Reed Morn. Their works can be understood as manifestations of fin-de-siècle culture, with the primary question being the vitality, life forces, and sexual identity of the human subject. Jaan Oks may be the author who most successfully applied the poetics of the scene in early 20th century Estonian literature. Oks reveals the essential lability of the human subject and its physical susceptibility to the environment, making it difficult to even speak of stable gender identities. Leo Anvelt uses the poetics of the scene to depict the world of his protagonist, Rein Endise, in his novel 'Viirastusi valges öös' (Ghosts in the White Night) but allows the protagonist's fate to unfold in a rather intellectual logic. Reed Morn's novel 'Andekas parasiit' (The Talented Parasite) provides an example of a work where the affective world of the protagonist is strongly rationalized, and the possibilities of the poetics of the scene are therefore used very modestly. The second group of examples explores Viivi Luik's 'Ajaloo ilu' (The Beauty of History) and Mati Und's 'Sügisball' (Autumn Ball) as fruits of late Soviet-era urbanized reality, in which people's affective life is strongly influenced by the perception of emerging globalized and intertwined world. The third group of examples comes from the significant literary trend in early 21st-century Estonian literature that deals with the literary representation and working through of traumas created in the post-World War II totalitarian society. This group includes the works of Ene Mihkelson, Eva Koff, and Carolina Pihelgas. Main conclusion that can be drawn from the study, is that the concept of scene enables to track modernist innovation through more than century long period. Another important conclusion is, that the concept of scene is well suited to explain the literary depiction of obscure but existentially significant phenomena such as sexuality and trauma. It is also argued that the concept of scene works most fruitfully in literary studies when narratological and phenomenological methods are complemented carefully by more contextual information from sociology, gender studies, technology, and other fields of historical understanding.
In literary studies, the word modernism has usually designated radical literary works that have sought to break away from tradition and establish a new type of poetic vision of the world. But the word modernism has also designated the period of cultural history from the second half of the 19th century to the middle of the 20th century, when literature recorded and reacted to many social changes such as the spread of ideas of equality and democracy, urbanisation, and the explosive development of technology. This doctoral thesis develops a methodology for studying modernist innovation in fiction by using the concept of scene and uses it on various Estonian-language works throughout 20th and 21st century. First, the thesis gives as an introduction an overview of various ways scholars and critics have conceptualised and periodised modernism in Estonian literature, giving examples from the Noor-Eesti to studies in the 21st century. Next, as its main aim, modernist fiction is constructed through the methods of narratology and phenomenology with a special emphasis on the nuances of how bodily feelings (or “affects” as conceptualised in late humanities and social sciences) are represented in the literary text. At least since Aristotle's "Poetics", narration has been understood on the basis of verisimilitude: in the narrative, typical events occur to characters with typical characteristics of their era. In order to create a fictional world that appears natural and motivated to the reader, it is necessary to have sufficiently probable events and characters. However, among the novels that emerged in the latter half of the 19th century and the early 20th century, there are many whose realism cannot be explained solely by the presence of probable and typical events and characters in the narrative. These works often foreground not the events that signify the characters' (often dramatic) life changes, but rather an increasingly elusive affective atmosphere that does not belong to any individual character but rather emerges from the interactions between people and the obscure realms of human-nature connections. One productive way to make sense of this shift in literary poetics has been to analyse the relationship of narration with one of its possible counterparts, description. One of the goals of the theoretical part of this thesis is to re-examine the opposition between narration and description and to demonstrate its inevitable limitations. Having considered the semantic contradictions between narration and description, the thesis opts rather for the concept of 'scene', derived from Fredric Jameson's book The Antinomies of Realism (2013) and developed here further. A scene presents reality in a fundamentally different way from narration, allowing greater access to physical sensations and to a large extent omitting the dimension of causality, which is central to narration. After the introductory and theoretical sections, the thesis delves into a few milestones in Estonian literary history to reinterpret them in the light of the concept of scene. Examples from Estonian modernism are divided into three subgroups, each with its peculiar historical context. The first group of examples consists of works by Jaan Oks, Leo Anvelt, and Reed Morn. Their works can be understood as manifestations of fin-de-siècle culture, with the primary question being the vitality, life forces, and sexual identity of the human subject. Jaan Oks may be the author who most successfully applied the poetics of the scene in early 20th century Estonian literature. Oks reveals the essential lability of the human subject and its physical susceptibility to the environment, making it difficult to even speak of stable gender identities. Leo Anvelt uses the poetics of the scene to depict the world of his protagonist, Rein Endise, in his novel 'Viirastusi valges öös' (Ghosts in the White Night) but allows the protagonist's fate to unfold in a rather intellectual logic. Reed Morn's novel 'Andekas parasiit' (The Talented Parasite) provides an example of a work where the affective world of the protagonist is strongly rationalized, and the possibilities of the poetics of the scene are therefore used very modestly. The second group of examples explores Viivi Luik's 'Ajaloo ilu' (The Beauty of History) and Mati Und's 'Sügisball' (Autumn Ball) as fruits of late Soviet-era urbanized reality, in which people's affective life is strongly influenced by the perception of emerging globalized and intertwined world. The third group of examples comes from the significant literary trend in early 21st-century Estonian literature that deals with the literary representation and working through of traumas created in the post-World War II totalitarian society. This group includes the works of Ene Mihkelson, Eva Koff, and Carolina Pihelgas. Main conclusion that can be drawn from the study, is that the concept of scene enables to track modernist innovation through more than century long period. Another important conclusion is, that the concept of scene is well suited to explain the literary depiction of obscure but existentially significant phenomena such as sexuality and trauma. It is also argued that the concept of scene works most fruitfully in literary studies when narratological and phenomenological methods are complemented carefully by more contextual information from sociology, gender studies, technology, and other fields of historical understanding.
Kirjeldus
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Märksõnad
Estonian, modernism, novels, poetics, narratology, interpretation, history of literature, literary criticism