Mimesis ja pyhä Panu Tuomen runoudessa

• Tuomas Kervinen Itä-Suomen yliopisto

DOI: https://doi.org/10.30665/av.74934

Abstract

Mimesis and the Sacred in the Poetry of Panu Tuomi

The article examines two works by the Finnish poet Panu Tuomi: Pyhän Vituksen tauti (2003) and Vaaleanpunainen ilmestyskirja (2005). The article traces the presence of so-called mimetic relationships in Tuomi’s vision of a desacralized world. Tuomi’s romantically motivated poems, which often address some distant other and use different archaic motives, are interpreted through the mimetic theory developed by literary critic and anthropologist René Girard.

In Tuomi’s poems, the romantic thirst for the other’s being – in Girardian terms the metaphysical desire – often results in a mimetic and rivalistic relationship which turns its objects into compelling models. Many of these mimetic relationships, along with the recurring mythical themes and motifs of the poems, such as contagious diseases or mythical twins, signal the undifferentiation of human relationships in a world which no longer has the ability to externalize such mimetic rivalries through the category of the sacred and thereby stabilize the boundaries of individuals and communities.

The article demonstrates that such signs of mimetic crisis are integral to Tuomi’s apocalyptic vision. In addition, besides Tuomi’s alchemical leanings, the poems have distinctly Catholic and mystical aspects to them. Most importantly, however, Pyhän Vituksen tauti and Vaaleanpunainen ilmestyskirja function through their poetic form as critical commentaries of their own modern and desacralizing world.