Writing the Self Through the Transformational States of the Public

University of Lund Peter Henning Språk- och litteraturcentrum Master's thesis Literature – Culture – Media: LIVR07 Supervisor: Eva Hættner Aurelius 2009-06-03 Writing the self through the transformational states of the public Dialogical concerns of self-writing in a study of the autobiographical work of Agneta Horn and Erik Gustaf Geijer Table of contents Introduction .............................................................................................................. 3 At the crossroads of past and present 3 Research aims and posed questions 4 Material 4 Disposition 5 A note on translations 6 Dialogue, performativity and the appropriation of identity .............................. 7 Defining the terminology of the public 7 Approaching the performative 9 Claiming identity 14 Questioning, and gaining, identity 17 The phenomena of dialogue 20 Relationality and dialogue 21 ‘Utterance’ in the Bakhtinian sense 23 From speech act, to performativity, towards dialogue 25 Dialogue as illuminated through transformational, external structures 28 Summary 31 Modes of dialogue in the seventeenth century: a study of the political publics of literature and the autobiography of Agneta Horn............................................. 33 A book-historical background 33 The poltical public and its ideological expressions 36 Self-writing and the public 38 The case of Agneta Horn 41 Selfhood in between the diverging perspectives of modernity and postmodernity 46 Searching for one’s self in the publics of literature: the circumstances surrounding Erik Gustav Geijer’s Minnen ........................................................ 49 Introductory remarks 49 Previous research, the relevancy of a new perspective 50 Rethinking Minnen 52 The formal issue of the compilational form 52 Melancholic retrospection 54 A second farewell 59 To find a self 61 An aesthetic in transition, Minnen towards the public 65 1 Summary and conclusions .................................................................................... 70 Discussing research aims and questions posed 71 Formulating a theoretical perspective 71 The altered relations between self-writing and the publics of literature 73 Approaching the contemporary field 74 Future research 75 Bibliography .......................................................................................................... 77 Printed material: books and articles 77 2 Introduction Publicness at the crossroads of past and present In the following work, I will be arguing for the importance of studying the historical development of the publics of literature in relation to the conception of the self, and of the writing subject's construction of identity. A further aim in approaching this matter historically, is to provide a more extensive understanding of contemporary literary expressions in interaction with the public. In today’s layout of the public sphere we are experiencing an array of aesthetic strategies utilizing the interplay of private and public in new and challenging modes of self-expression. Some writers have appropriated the public realm as an integral part of the literary work as well as rendering the boundaries of the intimate sphere continually ambiguous. In some cases, these doings have stirred heated debates in media. What may be overshadowed by the consciously provocative nature of some of these works, are the pressing questions of identity construction in relation to the public sphere being actualized. Further, while it is easy to consider these phenomena as specific to our contemporary era and its postmodern and postindustrial developments in culture and technology, I believe that it is possible – and necessary – to enrich our understanding of these questions by addressing them from a historical perspective. Specifically, we are impelled to study the development of the public realm and at the gradual transformation of its related concepts. While extensive efforts already has been made to map the structural changes leading to the breakthrough of the public sphere in Europe, less research has focused on the individual writing subject's relation to the notion of publicness in general. This is an significant issue, not only for the interpretation of texts before the advent of a commercially functional literary market, but also for gaining a thorough understanding of how the nature of the public has conditioned the possibilities of literary expression. Another concern of the present work is to bridge the distance between what on the one hand appears as decidedly modern self-writing, and on the other, texts from 3 before the 1900s. We must ask if it is possible that they actualize similar questions regarding the interrelation between writing and identity and also discuss in what ways literature relates to the intimate vis-à-vis the open. By providing two accounts of the altering states of publicness in Sweden, this study will highlight the tension of private and public seen as a reoccurring phenomenon in the history of literature. Research aims and posed questions With the goal of providing further insight to the questions posed below, the essay at hand will, through a selection of historical strokes, put focus on the writing subject’s relation to public and private spheres respectively, and the tension filled space between intimate and open. This is grounded in the hypotheses that self-writing and similar interdisciplinary artistic expressions constitutes a network of strategies for creating platforms of self-definition in between these polarities, although this may not always be a conscious choice. Investigating the interrelated fields of self-expression and the development of the publics of literature, the present essay will attempt to give answer in the following matters: • How can we theoretically describe the construction of an autobiographical subject in regards to the self-writer’s involvement in contextual spaces private, public and in between? • In what ways, if any, has the relation between self-writing and the publics of literature changed, seen out of a historical perspective? • How does this relation show in texts before and after the advent of a literary market, and furthermore, can its uncovering in any way aid the understanding of the contemporary field of self-writing? Material Apart form the theoretical work put to use in the following, two literary examples are discussed with the intention of illuminating the specifics of their respective time periods. 4 Agneta Horn's manuscript ‘Beskrifningh öfwer min älända och mÿket wederwärtiga wandringestidh [...]' (~1656-1657) will be lifted in connection to its seventeenth century context as it raises important question both concerning the act of writing outside of the openly circulating, and of the nature of the public realm at the time. To highlight the changes occurring during the nineteenth century, Erik Gustav Geijer's Minnen. Utdrag ur bref och dagböcker (1834) have been chosen due to it being the first autobiography published during an author's life time in Sweden. The discussion surrounding it has an additional value since it is a text that little has been written about. This is especially true in the case of analyzing it in the context of the developing public sphere – an aspect of Minnen where the following study breaks new ground. The amount of previous research pertaining to the respective works corresponds to the detail of the textual analysis in each example. In the case of Agenta Horn it has been possible to profit from already thorough accounts of the work in question and focus, then, has consequently been put at developing the contextual aspect of the matter. In the case of Geijer on the other hand, the opposite has been true. Disposition The present study consists of two main parts: a theoretical and an analytical. The theoretical section (pp. 7-32) initially introduces the three perspectives being put to use – performativity, theory on the public sphere and Bakhtinian dialogue – with a discussion concerning their logical structure and interrelation. Subsequently, these concepts are approached critically in an attempt to formulate a broader theoretical framework for understanding the autobiographical subject's interaction, and construction, in regards to the altering conceptions of public and private. The analytical section (pp. 34-70) actualizes the theoretical issues that has been raised through two case studies concerned with the autobiographical work of Agneta Horn and Erik Gustaf Geijer respectively. The possibilities of expression pertaining to the altering notions of publicness is put into a historical perspective and discussed before and after the breakthrough of a commercially functional literary market. The two individual chapters present two evident diversions in method: the discussion on Horn approached more contextually, while the analysis of Geijer's 5 Minnen to a greater deal roots in textual analysis. The reason for this is twofold: firstly, it is a matter of necessity since the present work constitutes one of the few serious attempts to thoroughly discuss Minnen. Secondly, the diverging approaches showcases the possibilities of intermingling textually and contextually oriented studies in the research of literature's relation to the public realm. In fact, this interweaving appears crucial in the search for a deeper understanding of the possibilities of communication through the literary media in general. Lastly, a concluding part (pp. 70-76) summarizes the topics having been raised throughout the essay

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