Att berätta landskap. Om form, plats och rum i Folke Dahlbergs landskapsböcker

Mats Jansson, Department of Literature, History of Ideas, and Religion, University of Gothenburg Narrating Landscape. On Form, Place, and Space in Folke Dahlberg’s Landscape Writings (Att berätta landskap. Om form, plats och rum i Folke Dahlbergs landskapsböcker) This article deals with four prose works by Folke Dahlberg (1912–1966)— Vättern (1949), Tiveden (1952), Göta kanal (1954), Leva vid Vättern (1958)—focusing the relationship between landscape and literature. Generically difficult to pinpoint, these works transgress literary boundaries by incorporating an array of literary discourses. The question of literary form becomes central and is discussed from a narratological point of view, leading to an assessment of the predominantly intertextual narrative. Furthermore, landscape is tied to the concept of regionalism, epitomizing its basic characteristics. Dahlberg re-presents the stories carried by the landscape, whereby he treats it as a “storied matter” in an ecocritical sense. To further the understanding of landscape, the analysis seeks support also from cultural geography and phenomenology. From the latter point of view landscape comes forth as a bodily experience. Since Dahlberg inserts maps in his discourse, this calls for an investigation of how cartography and topography intersect in his writings.