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Experimentation with genres and literary forms has been common
in European literature since the early 19th century,
and is normally connected with the modernistic movement, and with
the romantic movement.
Hanne Aga has been conceived of as writing in a tradition influenced
by both modernism and romanticism. Her poetry is modernistic in
the sense that her constant leit-motif is an intense preoccupation
with and search for the genuinely poetic, her quest goes through
language, to language. Her poetry is romantic in the
sense that her aim is order and wholeness. The outstanding features
of her poetry, I would say, are her intensely loaded metaphors.
Their force is striking.
All trough the eighties the mixture of genres and the concomitant
techniques have been in wide use in Norwegian literature, an example
of which is the so-called 'punktroman' (literally: a novel of
points). in simple terms a 'punktroman' is a fragmentary short
text with traits in common with both poetry and prose. The poetry
published in Norway during the eighties is often characterized
by its cyclical nature, or attempts were made to interconnect
its parts by means of an epic element. Reflections on language
and writing are also fairly common in Norwegian literature of
this decade.
Although she has not written a novel of points, the mixture of
genres has been part of Hanne Aga's poetical program since her
third book, "Hard, klar rose. Ei open historie" (1985).
This shift is related to the specific thematic contents of her
later book: they are also always reflections on their own origin,
the origin of poetical language. The birth of poetry is for Hanne
Aga only possible through a struggle with the medium of language
itself. A struggle in language, for language. For creativity.
The narrative element in the works of Hanne Aga partly appears
in transitional zones between reflection and poetical language.
Or, to put it differently, in the interrelationship of body and
language. This means that the reflective activity releases her
inner images, enabling them to emerge in language. Or vice versa:
The fully formed metaphors spur the reflective level of the text
into activity.
This double process is also present in the characters in her books,
independent of whether they are tellers, or are being told about.
The various characters are at the same time positions, points,
stages of language.
In the works of Hanne Aga reflection, narrative and poetry are
all integrated into a single artistic whole.
In her first two books the life-denying forces are opposed more
directly by a defiant voice. Just as apparent, however, is the
joy of creativity, the pleasure and pain of being positioned in
the world with a body and with a language. The poetic I here moves
in a more clearly defined outer world, rooted in a real topography
with localized characters. The defiant voice is also to a certain
extent raised against the oppression taking place on our planet.
But already in the second book there are clear indications that
the text's I is approaching a language where words have the same
reality as objects, bodies and incidents of the external world.
From her third book, "Hard, klar rose. Ei open historie",
there occurs a definite change, both thematically and formally,
in the poetics of Hanne Aga.
The repression as it appears in language itself: that is the growing
concern of her poems. One must, as a writer, confront the obvious
fact that as repression is present in language, one must fight
it through the medium by which it is expressed. A logocentric
language, formed by a dominant ideology, not only has an oppressive
effect on the individual human being, through laws and rules,
it also has a repressive effect on the unconscious and the body,
where a more immediate language arises, related to the creative
impulse. In this perspective a more reflective, analytical insight
into the origin of language is indispensable.
This shift in her concerns also affects her metaphors. The poetic
I turns inwards. Images arise, condensed and novel images, linking
words, people and the external world in an unbreakable chain.
The transitions between poetry, narrative and reflection occur
not only within a single book, there are also modulations from
book to book. The third book of Hanne Aga may be characterized
as mainly a reflective book, and contains an emerging poetics,
while the next one, "Bror Sorg" (1986) is a more densely
poetical work, a more homogenous unity of poetry and reflection.
"Bror Sorg" is in résumé a book about
Karin and her way to language, through language.
Karin lives in a house by the sea, by the foot of the mountain,
together with her mother and brother. Her world consists of fish
and gulls, boat and boat-sheds, house with loft and local chapel.
She has to define her position to religion, and to her own lack
of an authentic language. The poetic subject, the I of the book,
writes about Karin who is laid up in bed. She, too, is writing,
on the wall. There are several layers in "Bror Sorg",
one of them is the story of Karin and her brother, another one
is the story of finding/becoming a language. The poetry is beautiful,
as it is in the next book. "Utan bevis" (1988), where,
however, her tone has become a bit tougher.
The development from "Bror Sorg", to "Utan bevis"
and finally to "Kraftas" is an organic one, and
might be called a quest for the center of gravity of language,
the center of its force ("kraft" in Norwegian means
"force", and the title "Kraftas" might be
interpreted as "of the force"). Getting in touch with
a forgotten force. What we perceive, we perceive by difference,
but our words are no more different from our bodies than a foot
is different from a hand, or more different from the world than
the sky is different from the earth, our shirt is different from
our shoe, red is different from green. Our vital force is inextricably
bound up with the word. To get in touch with this center, we have
to listen, either to our own, or other people's words. indeed
there exists in the very nature of language a basic ambiguity,
and one can both communicate and stop communication by its means,
one can both release and repress another language.
There is a double struggle going on in "Utan bevis",
a struggle against those who refuse to listen, against those who
approach poetry with a negative, repressive language, but at
same time a struggle on the part of the poetic I to oppose the
inherent resistance of language itself. A struggle for the ability
to handle the force of language, conquering the language which
is life.
In the last book of Hanne Aga, "Kraftas",
this aspect is very prominent: a struggle in language, for language.
KRAFTAS: POESI/FORTELJANDE. The three elements in the title are
important indications as to the nature of the book. The main title,
"Kraftas", indicates something of the essential concern
of the project. This is not only a book about force, it further
manifests the play of creative and linguistic forces. But "Krafta"
might also be a personal name, the name of the "she"
in the text. The sub-title "poesi/forteljande", in English:
poetry/narrative, indicates the genre of the book, i.e. its mixtures
of genres.
"Kraftas" is a poetic narrative both about itself, and
about the "she" and the "I" of the text, as
well as about the force of language. Reflections as to what constitutes
poetry, and the poetry itself of "Kraftas" cannot
be clearly distinguished. On the contrary, a point is made about
the interrelationship of these two aspects.
There is no longer a question of contradiction between a repressive
and a repressed language. Language exists here, eternal and whole,
but it possesses forces that can only be released through a hard
struggle.
In the poetical world of Hanne Aga, words are part of a living,
and death-bringing, reality. It is no longer possible to distinguish
between the activity of language and the experiences undergone
by the book's characters. The words possess physical reality in
relation to the body and to consciousness in the same way as other
aspects of human reality do. Body and consciousness are one.
It may look as if the language of "Kraftas" manifests
a measure of divine force. Force appears through struggle, a struggle
between life and death in language, and is embodied in the "she"
(Krafta) in the book. "She" (and "I") has
a brother whose name is Johannes, presumably the same brother
as in "Bror Sorg". "Johannes" is the Norwegian
version of
"John". This name, as well as the embodiment of a divine
force in language, may give rise to associations in the direction
of The Gospel according to John: "In the beginning was the
Word, the Word was with God, and the Word was God." "Kraftas"
is dedicated to "my eternal brother Johannes". It seems
almost superfluous to add that the poetry, the expansive poetry
in "Kraftas" is brilliantly beautiful and sows a new
seed . The issue here is reality, coordination, wholeness. And
transcendence:
Language, I rise you, scorching, celestial. Night comes / galloping.
Black force to our mouth. The slates break, I / pass
the stone wherever it wants. Mouth above mouth flowing altar.
My will tightens its
drum. Melting God, / focal,
undulating, swaddling. The emptiness
of the universe. Vacuum bursts. Between all. I hear, I hear, / I hear
you force. I hear you forth.
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Kristine Næss
Bø 22.04.1995
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