The „Book of Nature” Topos in the Late Lyrics by Pär Lagerkvist

Abstract

The article analyzes the Swedish writer Pär Lagerkvist’s last volume of poems, Aftonland (1953), and the metaphor of the “book of nature”, which the poet uses extensively and which forms the volume’s compositional axis. The starting point is to present the theological concepts of liber naturae (from their biblical provenance through philosophical and theological works of the Middle Ages and the Renaissance) and to indicate the functions of this metaphor in old literature. Lagerkvist’s take on this metaphor points to the fundamental change that occurred in the religious situation of man between the time of the metaphor’s peak popularity and the middle of the twentieth century in a completely altered historical context. Lagerkvist’s return to this metaphor involves its radical transformation in the spirit of a modern transformation of spirituality. Rather than revealing theological truths, the “book of nature” in Lagerkvist’s poetry is akin to the “codes of transcendence” by Jaspers, which bring man, living in a disenchanted modern world, closer to a transcendental dimension of existence. The transformations of the “book of nature” theme in Lagerkvist’s poetic volume are also analyzed against the background of the transformations of modern and contemporary astronomy, as well as in the perspective of the theory of the “logic of writing’ and, also, the relationship between writing and religion. The use of the old metaphor allows Lagerkvist to express the affirmation of spiritual longings and the search for meaning in the world as unfulfilled but inalienable human qualities. The conclusion also points to the presence of the “book of nature” motif in other works of the Swedish writer, which is a manifestation of his metaphysical interests.