”Ett kompakt litterärt mörker” : En kvalitativ innehållsanalys av det offentliga mottagandet av litteraturtypen feelbad

Sammanfattning: This study aims to look at the public reception of the literary form called feelbad. The empirical material is a selection of digital and printed documents and the method used is qualitative content analysis. Feelbad is a literary form which does not have a clear definition but is however used by both regular and professional readers. This study examines how regular and professional readers describe and value feelbad in terms of emotional reactions. This purpose is achieved by using theorist Rita Felski’s (2008) four modes of textual engagements (shock, enchantment, knowledge and recognition) and three different categories of literary value (emotional, style/form and knowledge) presented by Forslid et al. (2015). Literature often has an undisputed goodness assigned to it by society. Which is why it might be considered important to look at how readers are emotionally affected by the dark or depressing narrative of feelbad and how they value this literature. The result indicates that readers were altogether positive in their reception and often expressed physical reactions evoked by feelbad, whether if the reading experience was considered pleasurable or emotionally difficult. Readers often described feelbad as a form of literature that emotionally affect them either by depictions of suffering or abuse or by the beautiful written language. This is important knowledge to the library work since it shows how readers use literature and can be an important insight to how the librarians can develop their work with readers’ advisory or library shelving.