Runouden kuva elintilaa etsimässä

• Ville Pekkanen Jyväskylän yliopisto

DOI: https://doi.org/10.30665/av.74786

Abstract

The Poetic Image in Search for Living Space

In my article, I examine the concept of image, a concept which has been particularly problematic in the research of poetry. I will demonstrate that the previous definitions of the concept have been incoherent, too general and even contradictory.

In contemporary literary studies, the concept of image has been used as a generali¬zation encompassing various figures of speech. At the same time, it has been understood as a “pure image”, a concrete and literal expression of sensory perception. In the first sense, the image is in the same category as, for example, the metaphor, the symbol, and the allegory, whereas in the second sense it is given a specific definition of its own. In a sense, this confusing terminology is understandable given that the concept of image in literature and poetry is metaphorical from the outset. Nevertheless, terminological incoherence is not acceptable because of the major contradictions in the broader sense of the concept of image.

In Yrjö Hosiaisluoma’s definition, image is a singular visualizing expression in a text. According to Hosiaisluoma, in the modern poetry the image has been understood mostly as a “pure image” and only secondarily as a figure of speech. On the other hand, Janna Kantola argues that the metaphor, the allegory and the symbol all belong to a group of tropes, in which words are separated from their literal senses. One of my objectives is to demonstrate the major difference between metaphorical and literal use of ‘image’. The divergence is so crucial that it is impossible to consider the image as a trope.

My article considers three themes. First I read critically Aarne Kinnunen’s delineation of the notion of “pure image” in his essay “Jumalaton avaruus”. It is crucial to discuss Kinnunen’s essay because it is probably the most cited discussion of the concept of image in the Finnish literary research, along with Tuomas Anhava’s article “Runon uudistumisesta”. However, Kinnunen’s essay is mostly referred to only in passing, so I find it necessary to analyze the essay here in more detail. I associate Kinnunen’s thoughts about image to new criticism and structuralism.

In the second part, I compare metaphor and image with the help of Eva Feder Kittay’s model of the structure of the metaphor. I study the semiotic means of showing the difference between image and metaphor. In addition, I consider the difficulties that Saussurean semiotics faces in defining the concept of image. In the third part, I introduce phenomenologist Gaston Bachelard’s term “the poetic image” (une image poétique) in order to demonstrate how phenomenology fills the gaps that structuralism leaves open in the analysis of image.

My principal argument in this article is that the image should be interpreted above all as an ontological phenomenon. In its way of eagerly analyzing semantics, semiotics has forgotten the ontological question of Being. Image is not just about describing the external reality; rather, it is about having a fundamental view of the world, a certain stance towards the surrounding reality.