Upprepning, kombination, yta : Per Olov Enquists mogna författarskap i relation till det svenska 1960-talet

Sammanfattning: By conceptualizing repetition with the Swedish avantgarde aesthetics of the 1960s as a point of departure, this thesis argues that the repetition phenomena in the mature works of Per Olov Enquist (1934–2020) are indebted to the period. Hereby it brings together two major trends in the Enquist research that previously have been separate. In accordance with the main tendency of the period, the Enquistian repetitions reuse concrete constituents and are of technical and combinatory nature. According to the taxonomy introduced in the thesis, they are mainly internarrative, i.e., they transcend the limits of the individual stories. Thus, in Enquist, the superficial, anti-mimetic as well as anti-hermeneutical qualities pertaining to the period are a consequence of the specifically internarrative character of the repetitions, whereas the individual stories remain mimetically coherent. Furthermore, the thesis investigates a metapoetic discourse in the mature works; in part, it demonstrates a continuity between this discourse and the non-metapoetic notion of repetition in Enquist’s novels of the ‘60s. Altogether, the thesis proposes a way of historically situating the Enquist oeuvre as a whole; supposedly, it will contribute to further studies with similar aims.