The Poetics of Blank Spaces and Intervals in Selected Works of Elisabeth Rynell

Abstract

The poetry collection I mina hus (2006, "In My Houses") appeared after the successful novel Hohaj (1997, Schneelandschaft 2002), 1 which made the Swedish author Elisabeth Rynell known to a wide readership. It is not hard to discern motifs common to both her poetry and prose, such as descriptions of landscapes that speak to a number of sensory perceptions, seasonal cycles and intensive snapshot images. In the poems of I mina hus a suggestive technique of gaps for the reader's imagination is applied in the blank spaces: there are white spaces in the midst of the "poetic body" that create enjambments and ensure a striking overall layout. The blank space is a characteristic example of "textual form as sign" (Sabel and Glauser 2004, 6) and a counterpart to the inscription: "Hundar/ser exakt/det vi själva inte ser [ ] 2 Min hund/hade en blick/rätt ur den gamla världen [ ]" ("Dogs/see precisely/what we can't see [ ] My dog/had a gaze/reaching out of the old world [ ]") (Rynell 2006, 8). 3 This lacuna is referring to what is not be seen by humans; it establishes an analogy between the non-visual and the non-representational. But the