Kriisistä sanataiteeksi

traumakertomusten estetiikkaa

• Sirkka Knuuttila Helsingin yliopisto

DOI: https://doi.org/10.30665/av.74672

Abstract

From Crisis to Literature: Aesthetics of Trauma Narratives

The purpose of this article is to investigate the impact of traumatic memory on the aesthetics of trauma narratives, especially the visual and somatic dimensions of this mode of memory. After demonstrating how trauma theory has developed to its current form, I explore the psychological phenomenon of the overwhelming experience of historical trauma (PTSD). The artistic narrativization of historical trauma is understood as a public mode of working-through, which attempts to heal the split-consciousness of the traumatized person and prevent secondary traumatization of others. Since the verbal faculty is paralyzed at the moment of shock, but a clear image of the event is impregnated into the mind, the challenge of narrativizing trauma is to combine the recurring and intrusive visual images with the affect of horror, and to express this combination in a linguistic form. The main aesthetic devices of this transformation seem to be repetition of figures, indirect narrative methods, such as metafiction, and intertextuality. Specifically the recurring figures can refer to history only by pointing out the absence of trauma in historical representation.