Eva Lilja

NorLyr: A Scandinavian network in poetry research

During its early years this network was called ‘NorMod’, short for Nordic Modernism. Nowadays our home page is named ‘NorLyr’1. ‘Lyr’ is short for ‘lyrik’, which in Swedish means all kinds of poems. This change is due to that focus little by little has moved to the examination of the very latest literary achievements, poetry after the millennium shift, more than only modernism. The network was founded in 2002 by Idar Stegane, a professor in the Department of Scandinavian Languages and Literatures at the University of Bergen. Strolling around at a Nordistic conference, he noticed how the participants to a high degree lacked knowledge about literature from Nordic countries other than their own. Swedes knew little of Norwegian poetry, Danes knew little about Swedish poems, and so on. Thus, Stegane decided to do something about it. His first step was to contact Peter Stein Larsen in Aalborg, Denmark, Per-Erik Ljung in Lund, Sweden, and Hadle Oftedal Andersen in Helsinki. These four experts were the founding fathers, but their network developed quickly. Soon the group grew to include Eva Britta Ståhl, Härnösand, Sweden, Unni Langås, Kristiansand, Norway, and Louise Mønster, Aalborg, Denmark. Presently we number around twenty members, and every year new, young members turn up. We eagerly wanted members from outside the Scandinavian main countries Denmark, Norway and Sweden. An Icelandic participant has been sought out, and for some time Sveinn Yngvi Egilsson offered the Icelandic viewpoint. But Iceland in some way seems to be situated very far away out in the Atlantic Ocean, and it has been difficult to keep the contact. Concerning the Faroe

Embodied Rhythm in Space and Time: A Poem and a Sculpture

abstract: In this article, we outline the concept of aesthetic rhythm as an embodied lived experience. We investigate the temporal rhythms of a poem by Seamus Heaney and the spatial rhythms of a sculpture by Lena Hopsch, discussing similarities and differences between the two modalities. Previous research on aesthetic rhythm has mostly focused on meter, but here we use a broader concept of rhythm as we refer to pre-metered forms from classical antiquity. Aesthetic rhythm in an artwork is described as a play with proportions in time and space. Rhythm continuously stages bodily experiences of balance and direction. We develop the embodiment perspective of Maurice Merleau-Ponty as well as Mark Johnson’s concept of image schema. The schemas are shown to be premodal as rhythms function the same in temporal and spatial artworks. We also demonstrate a model for interpretation, developed out of the rhythms of the artifact.

Rhythm and Balance in Sculpture and Poetry

Rhythm might stand for the contrast between balance and movement, rest and conflict, in a piece of art. In this paper, we show that rhythm works as an organizing power as well as a producer of meaning. Both characteristics relate to the fact that rhythms activate internalized bodily experiences. Lena Hopsch has the perspective of producing art, and Eva Lilja forwards the perspective of academic reception analysis. The concept of rhythm is basic in all forms of art. It is common in descriptions of music, poetry, sculpture and painting. Sometimes rhythm seems to be too broad a concept to really tell anything important about a piece of art. Certainly there is need for a definition. Here, we explore aesthetic rhythm as a tool for a better understanding of two art forms: sculpture and poetry. We consider rhythm as a form of perception that governs both the experience and the production of artifacts. Our tool is cognitive theory, especially the field of embodiment research.