A Poetry of Grayness : Stig Dagerman's German Autumn as Postwar Reportage from Germany

• Tysk höst (German Autumn) is perhaps the most famous Swedish reportage book from the twentieth century. It was written as a series of reportages by the young author Stig Dagerman and depicts the life of ordinary people in Germany in 1946. Themes such as suffering, guilt, and feelings of dejection are discussed, framed by an atmosphere of grayness. The reader is invited to empathize, not with certain individuals but rather with anyone who is cold, hungry, and bereaved of their beliefs. This chapter explores how these themes are made universally human by an advanced literary technique. Dagerman links the abstract to the concrete, the argumentation to what he has observed on the spot. This is achieved through figurative language, where key words are repeated, gradually transforming them in meaning and blurring the line between illustrated scenes and metaphors. The result becomes a paradoxical kind of gray expressiveness, where the power of the language seems to contradict the gloomy content.

Ämnesord

HUMANIORA  -- Språk och litteratur -- Litteraturstudier (hsv//swe)

HUMANITIES  -- Languages and Literature -- Specific Literatures (hsv//eng)

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