Det är du att stå i regn hela tiden. Ett fenomenologiskt perspektiv på subjektet i Katarina Frostensons poesi

Sammanfattning: This essay examines the speaking subject in Katarina Frostenson’s poetry through a phenomenological perspective. The study is focused on how the subject appears, the relation between the subject’s inner world and the outside world, and the relation between the speaking subject and language. The purpose of the study is to expand the understanding of questions regarding the subject in Frostenson’s poetry by using a phenomenological approach – a perspective that is missing in previous studies. The material of study consists of five poems selected from a suite of poems called ”Fröanden” in the book Flodtid (2011). The theoretical framework is mainly constituted by phenomenological concepts of Edmund Husserl and Maurice Merleau-Ponty, supplemented by phenomenologically influenced literary theories of Wolfgang Iser and Georges Poulet. In my reading I move back and forth between the individual poems and let them illuminate each other, while making use of the phenomenological theory to make relevant observations in relation to the research questions. The analysis shows that the speaking subject is constantly intertwined and involved with both the outside world and with the language. The subject is always in the world as well as in the language, in an inseparable relation. In other words, the three research questions turn out to be inextricable. The phenomenological bridging of the subject and the object is highly present in the poems and phenomenology proves to be a fruitful approach for examining questions concerning the subject in Katarina Frostenson’s poetry.