Livnende stoff, elementers lengsel : En nymaterialistisk inngang til Elias Blix’ dåpssalme (145)

• As the father of Lutheran hymns in the Norwegian Nynorsk language, Elias Blix (1836-1902) looms in the Scandinavian country’s songculture, and his compositions remain popular, both inside and outsidethe church. Blix lent significant space to the more-than-human in his poetry, expressing the Christian gospel in the changing of seasonsor the budding of plants. This article explores a baptismal hymn from a new-materialist perspective. It demonstrates how the poet cast the initiation rite as a dynamic, erotic dance between the two elements of water and spirit/breath/air. With what one might call an ecocentric sensibility, Blix adumbrated a Christian understanding that decenters the human, as baptismal transformation unfolds with the agency of the elements.

Subject headings

HUMANIORA  -- Filosofi, etik och religion (hsv//swe)

HUMANITIES  -- Philosophy, Ethics and Religion (hsv//eng)

Keyword

Elias Blix

Lutheranism

New Materialism

Ecocriticism

Elements

Baptism

hymns

Publication and Content Type

ref (subject category)

art (subject category)