Alkemia ja meri Markku Paasosen Aurinkopunoksessa

• Outi Oja Jyväskylän yliopisto

DOI: https://doi.org/10.30665/av.74673

Abstrakti

Alchemy and the Sea in Markku Paasonen's Aurinkopunos

The literary influence of alchemy on the work of contemporary Finnish poets is remarkable but to this point it has received little critical attention. In her article, Oja provides a reading of alchemical imagery in the work of one of Finland's contemporary poets, Markku Paasonen, whose poems draw on metapoetic imagery connected to alchemy and the sea. The main emphasis is on Paasonen's first collection of poems, Aurinkopunos (1997). The innovative themes and motifs of alchemy and the sea are closely intertwined in Paasonent writing.

Oja shows that Paasonen's alchemical imagery is a vehicle with which his poetics can be established. The article demonstrates that Paasonen's use of alchemy is connected with older, medieval notions of alchemical imagery and that it also reflects other emphases related to romanticism, symbolism and surrealism.