Fróðskaparrit - 01.01.2005, Page 150

148
NEWS AND PROGRESS 2004
cial emphasis on the theme loss and re-
covery. By use of the hermeneutic analysis
given by Paul Ricoeur I give a thorough
understanding of the artistic modernity in
the later prose.
The analysis’ focus is on Heinesen’s use
of the myth, and the myth is analysed by
means of Ricoeur's notion of the concep-
tions of symbol, metaphor and narrative.
These literary core concepts depicts three
different ways of interpreting the original
symbolic univers of the myth. The sym-
bol, metaphor as well as the narrative
demonstrates an awareness of the tension
between their surplus of meaning and their
disparate representation of reality.
Heinesen’s interpretations of myth shall
be conceived as a meta poetry which sets
forth the myth as a very suitable point of
departure for aestethic conflicts. The thesis
explains symbol, metaphor, and narrative
as three decisive positions in the author-
ship’s interpretations of myths by inferring
them: the symbol in the novels The lost
Musicians and The Kingdom of the Earth,
the metaphor ind the short story Grylen,
and the narrative in the novel The Tower
at the Edge of the World and the cycle
of short stories Laterna Magica. Together
these three analyses show a tension be-
tween the loss as life’s irreversibility and
recovery as the interpretation of art.
The three analysis concepts in the thesis
throw a new light on Heinesen as a realist
with modernistic traits. The dramatic form
of myth does that Heinesen leaves the naiv
mimetic narrative form in favour of a form
which is streched between descriptions of
the difficult ontology of a moderne work
of art and its creative mimesis. At the same
time Heinesen distances himself from the
interpretations of wholeness and the exag-
gerated interest for the constitution of the
subject in modernism. He becomes ab-
sorbed in the form of experience through
remembering and creates coherence in the
disunite modernity without regressing the
conditions of disruption. The existential
experience is also interpreted in an pub-
lic cultural context whereby myth, science
and art are recounted as three discourses
where the reenchanted ability of the art
makes an artistic synthesis of the first two.
Heinesen uses remembering as a method
in his attempt to keep the modernistic and
the moderne loss of meaning, language
and experience at a distance. The poetry
is the releasing warrant of meaning.