Agrell , B . The Novel as Research ] ourney ! The Research ] ourney as a Novel . On the Aesthetics of
Repertoire and the Critique ofConventions in the New Swedish Prose ofthe I 96 os .
[ Romanen som forskningsresa ! Forskningsresan som roman . Om litterära återbruk och konventions -
kritik i I 960 - talets nya svenskaprosa ]
University of Göteborg , Department of Literature .
Göteborg : Daidalos 1993 ( 608 pp ) Monogr . ISBN 91 - 86320 - 53 - x
Abstract
This study investigates reader - oriented forms of literary re - use in the new Swedish prose of the
1960 s . The central hypothesis is ofa shift from a modern and modernist aesthetics oforiginality
toward a new interest in the role ofthe artistic repertoire seen in terms ofthe aesthetics ofrecep -
tion . Tools used in this analysis have been taken from linguistic phenomenology and the
discourse - oriented textual theories of G . Genette , L . Hutcheon and M . Bakhtin . The objective
of the study is to bring together the history of form , theories of the text and the aesthetics of
reception in applied textual analysis , while simultaneously taki - ng into account thernatic and
existential aspects of experimentation with form . The study focuses on the task of literary
address from the point ofview of the critique of conventions in relation to the ' open ' , ' impure '
aesthetics of the period . The orientation toward the aesthetics of reception is concretized in an
analysis of the ways in which cliches and conventional usage take on new functions in a type of
conglomerate re - use of texts , which serve to cast doubts upon both the cultural heritage and
contemporary trends . ·
Part / introduces the phenomenological matrix of the new orientation of the period , exhibiting
the theoretical frame of reference and basic approaches of the study . Part 11 presents an
annotated survey of the debate on literary theory from the period , complemented by literary
exemples . Part 111 extends the discussion with an analysis of Hess ( 1966 ) , an experimental novel
by P . O . Enquist . This analysis demonstrates how , in a typical way , address - oriented re -
contextualization of the traditional topos of the J ourney and re - use of emblematic techniques
integrate a problem complex including textuality , epistemology , phenomenology and
existential issues inta textual interplay between ego - centered and alter - oriented positions , based
on a critique of modern conceptions of Self - realization .
Key words : Ahlin , L . , alterity , Bakhtin , M . , documentarism , emblem , Enquist , P . 0 . , figura ,
Genette , G . , imagism , intertextuality , love , modernism , novel , pastiche , pastoral , phenomeno -
logy , picaresque , postmodernism , puritanism , speech act theory , reception theory , rhetoric ,
theology , trave ! literature
