Uusista murheista muovailtu

Nykylyriikan suhde lyyrisessä kansanrunoudessa esiintyvään surujen ja huolten purkamisen traditioon

• Lena Gottelier Turun yliopisto

DOI: https://doi.org/10.30665/av.74982

Abstract

Born out of Modern Sorrow. Relationship between Contemporary Poetry and Folk Poetry Tradition of Sharing Woes and Worries

21st century Finnish poetry includes works that emphasize their relationship with the traditional folk poetry both in form and content. This is something that has not been typical in the poetry writing and reading in the mainstream of the long tradition of Finnish modernism that started in the 1950’s. In the four female writer’s poetry that I read in this article in the context of folk poetry´s lyrical songs of care and laments, tradition emerges as a crucial part of formulating the worries of a modern (female) person into words. The function of tradition in my material is not an attempt to reach the past but to find a sense of community and mutual understanding through the traditional concept of songs of care and laments. Simultaneously, the act of formulating one’s individual worries into a poem brings alive the past generations of women that have survived thanks to similar strategies. In my article, poetry study intertwines with cultural studies because this approach helps me to look more carefully into the social dimensions of the concept of worry. The framework of traditional folk poetry as a context of reading modern poetry enables new social articulations for example in the connections of female gender and claims of care taking, or the image of strong woman which has been typical of national history writing in Finland. Ancient folk poetry, as a component that helps to formulate the mentalities of the 21st century people in poetry, articulates in the context of contemporary poetry as new.