University of Illinois Press and Society For The Advancement of Scandinavian Study Are Collaborating With JSTOR To Scandinavian Studies

Houses in the Poetry of Henrik Nordbrandt and Tomas Tranströmer
Author(s): Louise Mønster

Source: Scandinavian Studies, Vol. 83, No. 3 (Fall 2011), pp. 415-438
Published by: University of Illinois Press on behalf of the Society for the Advancement of
Scandinavian Study
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Houses in the Poetry of
Henrik Nordbrandt and
Tomas Transtromer
Louise Monster
Aalborg University
always encounters houses. Not only because we

constantly enter them, reside in them, leave them, and then
One return to them, but also because they are impossible to ignore
in an engagement with place and the relationship between the self and
its surroundings. Houses are undoubtedly fundamental places in the
human existence; they shape our first encounter with an environment,
serve as a basis for recuperation, and an anchor Of course,

provide point.
there are also humans whose distinct cultural and spatial experiences—
those whose existence is differently rooted or even rootless—give them
a separate sense of place. Nevertheless, for the majority of humankind,

houses play a very important Given this spatial a close
part. reality,
examination regarding the meaning of the house is only natural, and
perhaps even somewhat urgent. Such examinations can be undertaken
from many different angles, and the house has already been subject to
analyses by architects, sociologists, and philosophers to name but a
few. In this case, however, the approach will be literary: I will discuss
the meaning of the house as it emerges the poetic works of Henrik
Nordbrandt and Tomas Transtromer.
The works of these two poets in particular share a common charac

teristic in that the relationship between the self and its surroundings
constitutes an important thematic field. In both Nordbrandt and Tran
stromer, a central role, and we are shown that humans and
place plays
their cannot be viewed as separate, but rather that they
surroundings
instead constantly interact. An approach grounded in a sense of place,
4-16 Scandinavian Studies
therefore, allows for a greater understanding of their respective poetic

universes. Such an approach also allows for a transcendent quality of
the poems as they are re-inscribed into a more broadly existential con
text. Since place constitutes a basic category within Nordbrandt and
Transtromer and as the house constitutes one of the most fundamental
places in the human experience, it is hardly surprising that many of Nor

dbrandt's and Transtromer's poems contain houses. How are the houses
of Nordbrandt and Transtromer presented, what is their significance,

and what do they tell us about the relationship between humans and
their surroundings? Before looking at the specific character of houses in
the works of Nordbrandt and Transtromer, we shall first examine how
the house can be understood on a more general level in the works of
Gaston Bachelard, Christian Norberg-Schulz, and Pierre Bourdieu.
Houses in Theory
French philosopher Gaston Bachelard has made an exhaustive examina

tion of the house. He describes the house functioning firstas a cosmos
and as a safe and sheltering basis for our lives. In La poetique de I'espace
(1958), Bachelard makes a so-called topo-analysis: an analysis of the psy
chological deep structures of the places of our intimate lives (Bachelard,
Poetics ofSpace 8). The book focuses specifically on the house in which we
were born. Since that house constitutes our initial universe, Bachelard
also sees it as the origin of the poetic imagination. Bachelard finds a
very close connection between the house, the and
poetic imagination,
human psychology. For Bachelard, the house is consistently something
positive. He focuses his attention on places we love and associate with
pleasure, a study he calls "topophilia"— love for the place (Poetics of
Space xxxv). In contrast to the assumption that we are thrown into this
world, Bachelard emphasizes our initial safety in the cradle of the house.
Instead of seeing the world as a house, he stresses the way in which the
house constitutes a world of concrete places through an investigation
of the different meanings connected to the distinct places of the house
such as the roof, the cellar, the bedroom, and the stairs.
These specific places in the house are also the subject of the analysis
of Norwegian architect Christian Norberg-Schulz who, in a similar
manner, underscores the idea that the house constitutes an important
place in human existence. Such is the case 'mMellom jord 0£jhimmel:
Nordbrandt and Transtromer 417
en bok om steder ojj hus (1978), which, like many of Norberg-Schultz's

works, draws its inspiration from Heidegger and the phenomenologi
cal tradition. Here, Norberg-Schulz describes the basic human need to
settle down and identify oneself with one's surroundings. The house
must meet this need for identification and be seen as an interpretation
of a certain place—a visualization of realization and meaning. In other
words, the point of the house is "a gjore menneskenes forstaelse av
verden synlig som et 'bilde'" (Norberg-Schulz 81) [to make visible,
like a "picture," the way in which humans understand the world].1 It is
therefore that humans learn to read houses in order to pass
important
on this realization. This need for an interpretive reading of place applies
to both private dwellings as well as public buildings whose character,
though, is inherendy more general in their communal appeal. While the
central significance of the house is timeless, Norberg-Schulz emphasizes
that the house reflects specific spatial and historical conditions and he
The
distinguishes between cosmic, romantic, and classical buildings.
most significant point Norberg-Schulz makes is that houses not only
function as frames, but also signify—on a very basic level and, thus,
of the
carry meaning. This meaning asserts itself in the actual shape
house and the different components that comprise its interior. These
and
specific spatial relationships reflect our world like a microcosmos
provide us with a sense of belonging and security. The word "house"
implicidy conveys this security through its etymological connection to
that
protection: it belongs to a group of words that refer to something
covers, wraps, and protects something else, such as hylster,hose,hud, and
hytte(Norberg-Schulz 73).
In the article "The Berber House" (1973) French sociologist Pierre
Bourdieu gives an account of the different meanings connected with
the places of the house. While Bachelard's study of the house is rooted
in psychology and is, thus, ahistorical, Norberg-Schulz combines the
timeless and the time-specific. However, the structuralist study of
Bourdieu is even more concrete in its use of history and geography.
Bourdieu's analysis deals with a very specific house, namely the Algerian
Berber house and its representations of femininity and masculinity. The
in the house. Bourdieu
analysis focuses on the activities that take place
argues that the different rooms achieve their meaning precisely through
i. My own translations unless otherwise noted.

appear throughout,
4i8 Scandinavian Studies
these actualities. one of Bourdieu's well-known concepts, we

Using
may say that it is our habitus2—our customs and ingrained modes of

perception—that is decisive for the attribution of meaning. Bourdieu
demonstrates that the house is connected with the feminine while
the public sphere is associated with the masculine. The same division
repeats within the frames of the house itself: the house is divided into
both feminine and masculine sections. Domestic activities connect the
woman to the lower, darker, and obscure rooms of the house, while the
man is linked with the rooms on the upper, light-filled levels and their
social spaces. In this description, the house symbolizes the larger social
structure. As a microcosm, the interior of the house reflects the external
social organization in which the role of the man is more predominant

and extroverted than that of the woman.
In his study, Bourdieu anticipates the tendency in present research

to move away from fixed, symbolic interpretations of space and place
and instead embraces a more complex approach that takes into account
different historical, cultural, economical, and political considerations.3

This tendency can also be seen in the overarching theoretical movement
from Bachelard to Norberg-Schulz and finally to Bourdieu. Although
there are significant differences in the three theoreticians' approaches, all
of them understand the house as fundamentally connected with mean
ing. Whether the professional approach be that of the philosopher, the
architect, or the sociologist and whether the theoretical orientation is
psychological, existential, or gendered, the house remains an extremely
important reference point in human lives. The house is closely con

nected to our imagination as well as to our identity and culture and
thus provides a useful mirror for greater it
understanding. Although
may seem more relevant to draw on the ideas of Bachelard rather than
those of Norberg-Schulz and Bourdieu when dealing with the houses
of Nordbrandt and Transtromer, each of their theories the
supports
idea that the house holds a central position in human lives, a theme
repeatedly explored and examined by Nordbrandt and Transtromer.
This understanding of the centrality of houses in the human experi
ence also signifies the life of houses: houses are not dead or silent rooms.
2. See Bourdieu, "Habitus."

3. As Setha M. Low and Denice Lawrence-Zuniga write about "gendered spaces,"
they notice this tendency: "The study of gendered space has moved away from earlier
conceptions of fixed symbolic and territorial associations to consider more complex
understandings. Historical studies of gender constructions over space and time reveal
variability within cultures and the complex interlinkages of gender with social, economic,
and political influences" (13).
NoRDBRANDT AND TRANSTROMER 419
On the contrary, they are living and speaking places. The expression "if
these walls could speak" conveys the hope for a revelation concerning
the events that took place in the house during one's absence. Although
houses do not have a physical voice, they do speak: they articulate the
way in which humans are placed in the world. However, in Nordbrandt
and Transtromer this articulation is particularly extensive. Significantly,
these authors both depict houses as places that actively witness the
lives lived within their walls. In many of their poems about houses,
Nordbrandt and Transtromer focus not on the presence of the subject
and his concrete surroundings, but rather on the past lives of each.
The houses of Nordbrandt and Transtromer contain hidden stories,

and inhabiting the houses becomes an attempt to read these stories.
Inhabitation as interpretation enables a greater understanding of the
relationship between scale and time in the context of an individual life.
In addition to the actual physical contours of the house—specific rooms
and resting places—the houses present a psychological dimension as
a space for consciousness and reflection. As such "houses of the self,"
they often transgress common methods for understanding reality and
instead point to that which lies beyond the ordinary world. But how is
this close connection between houses and human existence described
more precisely in the poems?
The Houses of Nordbrandt
We begin with the houses of Henrik Nordbrandt whose work abounds
with poems in which houses occupy prominent positions. There is not

of more
a single collection poems by Nordbrandt without a house—or
several houses. In Nordbrandt, one finds an overwhelming

precisely
interest in houses due to his poetic focus on the question
pervasive
concerning the relationship between the self and its surroundings. The
collections that are most with to their focus on the
interesting regard
house span the time from his debut Digte (1966; Poems) to Spqgelseslege
(1979; Ghost-games).4 Of the ten collections published during this
period—in addition to the two aforementioned titles—miniaturer (1967;
4-. In the chapter "Huset og fyrsten i digtet" in his book Med andn ord (1996), Thomas
Bredsdorff also pays special attention to the meaning of the house in Nordbrandfs works.
He correctly points out that die house holds a central position from the beginning of
Nordbrandt's work, but whereas he states that the significance of the house decreases
from Guds Hus onward, I believe that the house still holds a very prominent position
in Spggdseslege.
42o Scandinavian Studies
Miniatures), Syvsoverne (1969; The Sluggards), Opbrud og ankomster

(1974; Departures and Arrivals), Glas (1976; Glass), and GudsHus (1977;
God's House) are the most significant. Reading these texts together one
is struck by the multiple parallels running throughout the house-poems
in each collection. The house functions as a toposboth in an etymological
manner—by referring to the fact that the house is a place—and also in a
figuratively denoting the concept of toposas fixed terms and expressions
of language. In other words, the house is simultaneously both a place
and a rather consistent imaginative pattern in the works. Throughout
the collections one notices that the houses of Nordbrandt are normally
old, if not decayed, and that they house old inhabitants—often elderly
people, widows, or ghosts—and thus represent or preserve the past.
This observation corresponds with the recurrent images of the icon
and the palimpsest as well as an atmosphere marked by melancholy.
The predominant season is autumn, and themes regarding absence and
death are prominent. Finally, the house in Nordbrandt is often seen and
reflected from a dream-like position and is initially alien to the subject.
It is a place that the nomadic self approaches from the exterior. As such,
this place is a location to which the self relates to during his restless
journey marked by constant departures and arrivals.
In the debut collection, these aspects are evident in the poems "vil
ladekadence" (villa decadence), "sostrene i villaen" (the sisters in the villa)
and "sommerhuset" (the summer cottage). In the first two poems, the
house is depicted from the point of view of a detached who
spectator
notices the house's hosting characters from the In "villadekadence"
past.
a completely failed and faded universe is described. The world of the
house is related to former times—"et andet arhundrede" (Nordbrandt,
Dijjte 24) [another century], "victorianske fabler" [Victorian fables],
and "1901"— and it is associated with women and aunts. As the
elderly
persons and the house are closely knit, the porous and natures
rickety
of each are emphasized by words such as "stottet af" [supported by]
and descriptions such as "skaller af dromme" [shell of dreams] and
"balancerer / de tynde ben: kalkskaller / beklatret af areknuder" [balance
/ the thin legs: lime shells / covered by climbing varicose veins." We
find fossilized "nedfaldsasbler [windfall apples], "fluesnavs" [dirt from
flies], "forpuppede cykler" [pupated bicycles], and "hullede arkiver"
(24-5) [leaky archives]. This language serves to evoke the location of a
fringe area that belongs more to the mythic time of fairytales than to the
present. This sense of a preserved past is also perceptible in the poem
"s0strene i villaen," which begins with a description of how the villa is

in "et evindeligt efterar" (26) [an everlasting autumn]. In this poem,
we are outside of normal time: the garden is solidified, the weathercock
is rooted, and that which was once living, organic material becomes
birds kept in naphthalene and apples preserved in "eftermiddagenes /
overmaettedc lys" [the oversaturated light of noon]. Even the sisters, to
which the title refers, do not belong to the world of ordinary humans.
They move as if they are being steered by their dresses, and thereby they
amplify the sense of ghosts that become central later on—especially in
Guds Hus and Sp0£felsesleije. The poem "sommerhuset" contains many of
the same decadent elements. Similarly, we find ourselves in a preserved

world with women, birds, apples, and flies. Although the title draws
our attention to another and more positive anchoring in time, that
initial sense is undermined during the course of the poem. At the same
time, the self, absent in the earlier poems, is here explicit, and as the I
enters the house, we hear that summer is changing into autumn. The
contents of the house crumble away and perish: even the man sitting in
one of the chairs disappears. The house becomes a symbol of absence
signifying that which no longer is.
In the house-poems of the next collection, miniaturer, we find the
same melancholic thematics of decline: houses are connected with past
times, deceased people, and autumn (see "aprilaften" [April-evening],
"mens vi venter" [while we wait], "pa et grxsk hotel" [in a greek hotel],
"pa et grsesk hotel II" [in a greek hotel II]," "her horte du sangen for
forste gang" [here you heard the song for the first time], and "den
hypotetiske" [the hypothetical]). Subjects such as birds, trees, golden
colors, wind, watches, old texts, and if not apples then rotten
preserves,
stalks recur while other potent features are also introduced, i.e.
cabbage
the houses link to the icon and the palimpsest. An icon is a Christian
figurative picture of one or more holy persons, painted on wood and
at times coated with different metals. As such, the icon is a representa
tion: it is a way of making present that which is absent. As described

by Annette Fryd in her discussion of the role of the icon in the works
of one of Nordbrandfs favorite poets, Gunnar Ekelof, the icon is often
worshiped in ritual acts where one prays to, kneels to, or kisses the icon.
However, it is important that the worship of the icon is not directed at
the icon itself, but at that which it represents (Fryd 61). As such the icon
shares many interesting features with the palimpsest, an old parchment
on top of which a new text has been written, thus in part obscuring the
422 Scandinavian Studies
original text, which, nonetheless remains readable (Egebak 17). Both the
icon and the palimpsest thematically evoke the past, old, layered forms
of representation, repainting, and the re-emergence of something that
has disappeared.
A suitable example of a poem from miniaturer that presents both
the icon and the palimpsest is "pa et grxsk hotel" (in a greek hotel):
pa etgnesk hotel
varelser der vender ud modglemte torve
0£[pladser som hos Chirico.

maskiner afmarmor, lydlesefontmer
hvis vand aldrig falder tilbage i kummen.
£flemte varelser malet ovenpd hinanden

i lag, s&rt udsmykkede eller belt rwgne.
kun sjaldent tmffer en sen solstrdle den ubekendte
helgens 0jne. overalt folger de dig
indefra nutrket, de glemte ansigter

malet ovenpd hinanden og malet ovenpd hinanden igen
merke med noglefagyldne stank, ajenldg
der lukker sig over ejenldg.
klokker der nedsmkes i klokker, stemmer
korsang indespmrret i anlebent metal.

senere kun messingurets tikken, elevatoren
ergdet i sta et sted i bygningen
fanget i en eller andens S0vn,

en eller anden
som under utallige lag nwrk maling
betragter dig. (43)
(In a greek hotel
rooms facing forgotten squares

and places as in the works of Chirico.
machines of marble, silent fountains
whose water never falls back into the basin.
forgotten rooms painted on top of one another

in layers, strangely decorated or totally bare.
only rarely a late sunbeam hits the unknown

saint's eyes, every where they follow you
from inside the dark, the forgotten faces
Nordbrandt and Transtromer423
painted on top of one another and painted on top of one another
again
dark with few golden touches. Eyelids
closing on top of eyelids.
bells being lowered into bells, voices

choral singing imprisoned in rusty metal.
later only the ticking of the brass clock, the lift
has stopped somewhere in the building
captured in someone's sleep,

someone
who from beneath coundess layers of dark paint
watches you.)
As in the earlier poems on houses, the focus here is on the old, for
gotten, and absent. Once more we are in a strange world that seals
itself off and exists outside of normal time. Elements such as bells,
imprisoned choral singing, a stopped lift, and sleep thematically evoke
this hermeticism. The important thematic movement in the poem is
that absence itself becomes present. In the universe of Nordbrandt, it
is not only the beloved who is felt most strongly in her bortntzrvardse
(absent-presence). The houses stand as containers of former lives that

have not completely disappeared but force their way to the surface
from a recessed level. There is a heightened sense of time per se and
another dimension In the room that is forgotten and in the
present.
state, former lives can be sensed. The room contains more
hypnagogic
rooms. In the same way that the palimpsest is formed by layers of writ
the room has been repainted and under the new coats of paint, the
ing
I feels he is being observed by "den ubekendte / helgens ojnc" (43)
[the eyes of the unknown / saint] (notice the enjambment!) and "de
glemte ansigter" [the forgotten faces]. The palimpsest and the icon
occur and do so in a manner where the subject observes the
together
past and where the previous generations look back at him.5 In other
words, the spatiality of the poem is multidimensional—the room is

not only real, but also imaginary.
5. See my article "Vasggens (h)vide verden: Stedet i Tomas Transtromers forfatterskab."

Transtromer also has several poems in which the point of view is reversed, and something
from the past or the future looks at the present (8).
Likewise "her h0rte du sangen for forste gang" presents a house

capable of functioning as a passage to another world where normal
time and space are dissolved: "nar en hemmelig dor pludselig abner
sig / og du suges ind i billedet af det samme hus / set udefra, nar du er
derinde" (47) [when a secret door suddenly opens / and you are sucked
into the of the same house / seen from the outside when you
picture
are inside]. In this poem ghost-like persons appear. The poem ends
with the description: "og nogen har stillet sig ved din side / halvt gen
nemsigtig, smilende" [and someone has placed himself by your side /
half transparent, smiling]. The song to which the tide refers is described
more precisely in the following poem as "sangen om den fortryllede
skov" [the song about the enchanted wood]. In addition to working as
a guiding principle in the entangled universe of the two final passages of
miniaturer, the enchanted wood occurs in Syvsoverne.In "en gitterlage"
(a lattice gate), we are in a hotel room where a dream emerges and opens
an unusual and labyrinthine world whose surroundings correspond
with the I. Here every detail is part of a bigger whole and
... hver en sten du betmder i broUgningen resonerer med en bestemt

sten i de huse som omgivergaderne, indtil du tilsidst
ikkekan skelnedig selvfradit eget,hundredefoldige
ekko
der slur imod digfra bygningerne.(Syvsoverne
33)
(... every stone you step on in the pavement resonates with a certain
stone in the houses that surround the streets
until at last you
cannot separate yourself from your own centuple echo
which hits you from the buildings.)
The dream is a parallel world where persons and surroundings become

one and spatiality— and with it the houses—are internalized.
The houses of Nordbrandt do not associate to Bachelard with regard
to Bachelard's focus on the house we were born in and the feeling of
being safe and at home, but the poems of Nordbrandt underpin his
assumption of houses and (day)dreams as having a lot of common
points. The depicted houses facilitate a productive imagination, and
especially during die dream-state they bring about impressions, which
transgress a narrow and call attention to connections across time
reality
and space. For instance, one notices this theme in the gloomy poem
"Byzantium" from Opbrud og ankomster.The tide underlines the spatial
background, which is the region where the iconographic tradition has
its roots. To be more we find ourselves near "sammensunkne
precise,
grave" (Opbrudojjankomster 16) [sunken graves] in the late evening—an

evening with a fading light to which "kun de dodsdomte ansigter er
stxrke nok/til at yde tilstrxkkelig modstand" (16) [only the condemned
faces are strong enough /to muster sufficientresistance]. Once again, we
are in a troubled state of transition and yet another image of threshold
occurs in "[k]vinderne, som kalder ud i morket fra de forfaldne huses
abne dore" (16) [the women, calling out from the open doors of the
decayed houses] trying to tell the I something that is not understood.
In the ghosdy world of the poem, communication is blurred, normal
logic and rationality are disregarded, and, in accordance therewith, the
horses (symbolic of both dreams and the deeper levels of consciousness)
are set free in die night streets.
These connections between decayed houses, dream states, and the
different levels of existence and history are reiterated in the collection

Glas. The poem "Molyvos" begins with the lines:
Dag for dag skrider husene ned ad bjargsiden

efterhanden som deres beboere
vender tyggen til dem, glemmer hvem de er
eller opgiver at holde igen pa sten og tr£v<erk. (23)
(Day by day the houses slide down the hillside

as their inhabitants
turn their back on them, forget who they are
or no longer hold back stones and woodwork.)
Here a world has been created both beneath and above the surface of
the sea, a move that nourishes the of the and
again figure palimpsest
thematically evokes die multiple layering of history. The poem presents

a combination of the present and the past as well as the visible and the
invisible. This thematic layering constructs a textual site in which one
to the upper vis
can be affected by those things that no longer belong
ible world of logic—for example, entering die sunken house and being
bedazzled by the sunset's glow through the windows of houses that
disappeared long ago. Similarly, the I in "Sovnloshed pa Amorgos"
(Sleeplessness on Amorgos) feels haunted by the past and empty houses
with their vanished inhabitants, who want "mig til at dromme deres
hjemlose dromme / og vagne blandt dem pa zEgserhavets bund" (28)
[me to dream their homeless dreams / and wake up among them on the
bottom of the Aegean Sea], Furthermore, the icon and the palimpsest
are central in the description of the place:
—For Amorgos er ikke andet end et billede

der stiver frem, ndrsovnen n&rmer sig:
En ikon, pd hvis formorkede baggrund
jordsldede munke maler dede, i lag pa lag (28)
(—Because Amorgos is nothing but a picture

which emerges when sleep is getting nearer:
An icon with a darkened background
on which fusty monks paint dead people, layer upon layer)
Beyond being a real and concrete place in the Cyclades, Amorgos in

Nordbrandt's poem takes the form of an icon or a palimpsest in which
people from the past emerge and demand room among the living—and
as this action occurs in a state between waking and sleeping the continu
ity of the imaginary world of Nordbrandt is emphasized.

In the collection Guds Hus, the title itself points to the continued
exploration of the house and the book foregrounds the theme about
ghosts that had been hinted at in the previous collections. This spectral
thematic constitutes the central element in the last of Nordbrandt's col
lections that we will examine here, namely Spqgelseslege. God's house is

a house that contains ghosts. In the prologue to the book, the hostess
of the house points out that her late family has returned to the house,
and as the I rebuilds and lives in the house, he is also visited by his own
dead friends. Thus, it is indicated that God's house is of a very special
character, one that is shaped by its inhabitants. Rather than being
founded on reality, it is constructed on the level of the imaginary by the
words and memories of the I. This subjective construction also explains
why one cannot arrive at the house by following streets. God's
ordinary
house is a house of the self, and the identification between the house
and the I is obvious in the description "Og nar jeg griner, griner huset
/ ti gange hojere / og lainge efter at jeg selv er holdt op" (Guds hus 29)
["And when I laugh, the house laughs / ten times louder / and long
after I myself have stopped" (28)].6 To build and live in God's house
fundamentally concerns self-knowledge, self-awareness, and personal
history; is it about making the absent come to life. The collection ends
with the passage "Opstigningen" ("The Ascent") and the lines:
Sagik viflejtendeog trommendeop i bj&rgene
6. With regard to the poems in Guds Hus, I use Henrik Nordbrandt's and Alexander
Taylor's translations from Henrik Nordbrandt, God's House (1979).
NORDBRANDT AND TrANSTROMER 427
00 kun de store sj&le, kaldet klipper

havde sanserfine nok til at opfatte os
oj) lade vores musikforvandle dem til 0rer
pa en uddfid verden, som da blev levende. (39)
Then whistling and drumming we went up into the mountains

and only the great souls, called cliffs
had senses fine enough to perceive us
and let our music turn them into ears
on an extinct world which then became living. (39)
Why are there so many ghosts in Nordbrandt, and what exactly

constitutes a ghost? In his introduction to the translation of Derrida's
"ghost- book," Spectres de Marx (1993), Alte Kittang deals with the
latter question, stating that ghosts are figures that normal
transgress
categories of time and space. They belong to a spiritual dimension

and yet they are perceptible. Essentially—or precisely in absence of
such essence—the ghost is paradoxical and marked by duplicity. It is
a figure that makes visible that which is not. Kittang writes: "Doden,
ikkje-livet, fravxret gjer sin tilsynekomst som fravasrets nxrvser" (14)
[Death, non-life, absence become visible as the presence of the absent].
This manifestation and the making present of the absent constitute the
essence of many poems by Nordbrandt, who is known for his use of
the previously cited neologism of Ekelof, bortmrvarelse. In the poems
of Nordbrandt, one finds a constant vibration or shimmering between
appearance and disappearance, arrival and departure, absence and
presence. Or, using yet another paradoxical sentence, one may say that
the restiessness of his poems—often concretized as sleeplessness—is
the most notion. Resdessness is characteristic of ghosts,
permanent
who have not taken the final step from the world of the living to the
world of the dead and therefore remain to haunt the living. Or, as we
say in Danish: they hjemsoger ("home-seek") us, and this expression is

worth noticing since a ghost indeed is home-seeking. A ghost is some
one or that no has or does not yet have a sense of
something longer
who does not have a home but moves between
belonging—someone
the worlds of the living and the dead. Furthermore, this characteristic
of ghosts is stressed by Derrida in another neologism, htmtologi,which
combines into one word the French verb hante that has its roots in the
Norse haim, and ontologi, which is the theory about the nature of being.
Hantoh/ji is the theory of the existence of the haunting.7
7. Also see Kittang.
With the home in mind, it seems natural to include Freud's concept

of the uncanny as the un-heimliche or the re-emergence of the repressed.
The is something that was once known, then repressed, and
uncanny
finally turns up again. As such, it shares many features with die figure
of ghost. In other words, there is an essential etymological connection
between home, and I. These connective thematic nodes are
ghost,
evidenced in Nordbrandt's poems as ghosts entering houses associated
with the self. Additionally, ghosts, icons, and palimpsests share much.
They each make that which is absent present and create the possibility
that something from the past or repressed may resurface. With reference
to Lilian Munk Rosing's writing on the late Derrida and ghosts, one
can say that they disturb the boundaries between being and non-being;
they undermine the assumption of pure presence and ordinary time and
space (Rosing 80).
In Sp0<fjelsesk<fje,
the poems "Hus" (House), "Angst for koste" (Fear
of Brooms), "Byggeri" (Building), "Min farfarshus" (My Grandfather's
House), and "Rejsende i jern" (Travelling in Iron) are particularly
interesting with regard to the significance of the house in Nordbrandt's
works. Here, an examination of "Hus" and "Angst for koste" will
suffice. In "Hus" we once again enter a subjective universe where the
construction of a house depends on the I and where the plasticity of
such construction corresponds to the fluidity of shifting identities.
The I in this poem is not only in a hypnagogic state, but also under
the influence of a large amount of wine. Therefore, the reader's ability
to accept the narrating subject as a figure of authority whose words
and observations are grounded in reality is gready compromised by
the resulting haze and blur of both drunkenness and sleep. The poem
states that "[rjummenes antal synes at foroges med af vin /
mxngden
som svinder fra flasken" (Spegelseslege 55) [the number of rooms seems to
increase with the amount of wine / which disappears from the bottle].
It is obvious that the house cannot be understood within the normal
parameters for comprehending reality: "Korridorerne er lxngere end
huset, og trapperne / hojere end det tegltaekte tag" [the corridors are
longer than the house, and the stairs / higher than the tiled roof]. Addi
tionally, it is not only the I himself who is at stake. The poem begins
by describing the original inhabitants as entities who have not left the
house, but rather have entered the walls and entrenched themselves
in different rooms. The ghost also rummages here, and as the poem
continues, the status of the I changes. At the beginning of the poem,
he refers to himself as "den fremmede" [the stranger], but as the poem

progresses, he feels more and more like a participant in the building of
the house. After being identified and included as "vi" (56) [we], his self
takes on ghostly features toward the end of the poem. He waves at and
salutes passers-by without their notice. However, it is difficult to grasp
precisely what is happening in the text. The drunken state of mind, the
looping, arabesque quality of the poem and its many paradoxes evade
clarity and static interpretation.
Nonetheless, it is clear that we are dealing with a house of the self.
This is also the case in "Angst for koste" (Fear of Brooms) where the
firstand final stanzas have a characteristic tone that is both jocular (or
in Danish sp0<0e-fuld)and tragic.
Jeg er bangefor, atjeg er et bus

beboetof mange,som aldrig bliverfardige
med atga rundt om natten ogfeje
og at st0vjylder mine arer i stedetfor blod
og efterdr mit blik, hvor vejen drejer.
Jeg er bangefor, at jeg er et bus

og bangefor buset og for at mede de andre
nar defejer eller reparerer buset.
Og jeg er bangefor, at st0vet er mit eneste vidne

pa, at jeg er mig, og det rddne ledvogterskur
og efterdret, skinnerne, toget og vejsvinget... (70)
(I am afraid that I am a house

inhabited by many who will never finish
walking around at night and sweep

and that dust fills my veins instead of blood
and autumn my gaze where the road turns
I am afraid that I am a house

and afraid of the house
and of meeting the others
when they sweep or repair the house.
And I am afraid that the dust is my only witness
that I am myself, and the rotten gatekeepers' hut
and the autumn, the rails, the train and the turn of the road...)
Again, we see the house as a complex nexus of overlapping identities,

subjectivities, and realities. This house, literally internalized by the
speaking self, degrades both temporally and spatially such that the ulti
43o Scandinavian Studies
mate fixityof reality is undermined, probed beyond its accepted logical

structures. This while characteristic to Nordbrandt and
entanglement,
his poetic space, also points us in the direction of Transtromer. The
similarities between the poetic houses in Nordbrandt and Transtromer
amplify the significance and broad syntactic functioning of the house
discussed thus far.
The Houses of Transtromer
Transtromer's oeuvre is quite small in comparison with Nordbrandt's—

fewer than 200 poems—and even though the house functions as an
important place in these poems, the number of poems in which houses

play a central role is limited. Therefore, in tracing the theme of the house
throughout Transtromer, it is not necessary to limit the study to a specific
portion of his work. The house does not dominate a certain period or
specific collections in Transtromer as is the case with Nordbrandt. Still,
Transtromer exhibits his own unique characteristics in his depictions of
houses making it possible to also speak of the house as an imaginative
pattern with certain recurrent aspects. As in Nordbrandt, the depictions
of the houses often point toward a more expansive historical space
in which the absent—both past and future—becomes present. Here,
in contrast to Nordbrandt, the icon does not play an important role,
but the palimpsest remains a central poetic figure, which points to the
coincidence of different existential and historical levels.8 Additionally,
the descriptions of the houses are often related to states
hypnagogic
and also possess human features.
This anthropomorphization, for can be seen in "Resans
example,
formler" ("The Journey's Formulae"), in which the fourth section depicts
a house that has shot itself in the forehead; in "Fran berget" ("From the
Mountain"), in which the house sleeps; and in "Nocturne" ("Nocturne"),
where the houses become alive at night and desire a drink. Similarly,
there are examples of an existence between the exterior
overlapping
ity of the houses and the inner psychology of the human in the poem
(with the somewhat Nordbrandt-esque title) "Nar vi atersag oarna"
("When We Saw the Islands Again"). Here, on a figurative level the
8. In her book,Denjjrdstemme: stemmen i Tomas Tmnstromerspoesi, Birgitte Steffen Nielsen

stresses the importance of the palimpsest in Transtromer's work.
NoRDBRANDT AND TRANSTROMER 431
sea has entered the houses and through this move forms a parallel to
the narrating self who is initially filled with melancholy. However, in
tracing the development of the theme of the house in Transtromer's
works, it is also important to examine poems like "En vinternatt"

("A Winter Night"), which connects to the houses of "Nocturne" in
Den halvfdrdiga himlen (1962; The Half-Finished Heaven), "Glantan"
("The Clearing") in Sanningsbarridren (1978; The Truth-Barrier) and,
finally, "Det bla huset" ("The Blue House") in Detvilda torget (1983;
The Wild Market-Square). These poems will form the nucleus in the
following discussion, although other Transtromer poems will also
appear as relevant.
As indicated by its title, "En vinternatt" begins at night where,

once again, the house is connected to a somnambulistic state in which
a liberation from die concept of time takes place: "Jag sover oroligt,
vander laser / blundande stormens text" (Transtromer, Samlade
mig,
dikter 92) ["I sleep uneasily, turn, with shut eyes / read the storm's text"
(66)]. The poem is based on several displaced contradictions: an I and a
child; an outside and an inside, where a wild storm and the quiet night
rale, respectively; a concrete storm near the house and a more serious,
figurative storm over the world. The preceding poem "Nocturne" ends
with the stanza:
Jag ligger och ska somna, jag ser okanda bilder

och tecken klottrande sig sjalva bakom ogonlocken
pa morkrets vagg. I springan mellan vakenhet och drom

forsoker ett stort brev trdnga sig inforgaves. (91)
I lie down to sleep,

I see strange pictures
and signs scribbling themselves behind my eyelids
on the wall of the dark. Into the slit between wakefulness and
dream
a large letter tries to push itself in vain. (65)
in "En vinternatt" one feels that the storm tries to communicate

Similarly,
an indistinct message that lacks explicit formulation. In the firststanza,
we see the initial breath animating the message: "Stormen satter sin mun
till huset / och blaser for att fa ton" (92) ["The storm puts its mouth to
the house / and blows to produce a note" (66)]. And in the final stanza,
this breath returns, reinscribed in the description of a distinct, more
severe storm: "Den satter sin mun till var sjal / och blaser for att fa ton"
(93) ["It sets its mouth to our soul /And blows to produce a note (66)].
The close linguistic parallel opens a parallel poetic space between the
house and the soul, between the storm and the more abstract entities
that threatens to destroy the humans. In other words, the poem can
be seen as an opening to a global consciousness, and this widening of

horizons with the fact that the house contains more levels
corresponds
than one immediately notices. In the fourth stanza, we are told that "alia
forklingade steg / vilar som sjunkna lov i en damm" (92) ["all expired
footsteps / rest like sunk leaves in a pond" (66)]. As in Nordbrandt, the
historicity of the past has been imposed on the house, and yet again
we have a palimpsest-like figure where something is deposited behind
the surface of the visible.
These multiple levels of signification are also evident in the prose
poem "Glantan" in which the lyrical subject unexpectedly arrives at a
clearing in an otherwise dark and self-destructive forest. Here lie the
ruins of a house, and as the I experiences the place, he momentarily
gains access to a past existence.9 As was the case in Nordbrandt's Guds
Hus, which could not be reached via ordinary roads, this clearing
cannot be found intentionally—only by "den som gatt vilse" (193)
["someone who has lost his way" (118)]. Evidently, the clearing is both
imaginative and topological; the depiction facilitates associations of
the I having entered a secret temporal shift. Yet, while the I senses the
past existence and a connection with it, he is prevented from obtain
ing a more precise idea of those who live there. Using a concept also
employed by Nordbrandt in his description of the old houses, the past

is described in the poem as a closed archive that cannot be opened. The
oral tradition that following the logic of the poem could potentially
transgress time and space, has died, and we are left with an unreadable
text or a riddle: "Och torpet blir en sfinx" (193) ["And the homestead
becomes a sphinx" (118)]. Even though the house—and with it, the
narrative—has become unreadable, the house in this an
poem plays
important role in the manifestation of a larger historical space. The
house provides the site of structural and that
temporal convergence
testifies to the lives that have been lived therein. In this space that
discloses the stone foundation of the house itself, we find a passage
to the past. However, because the I belongs to the present world, he
cannot stay in the On the he has to return to "kom
past. contrary,
9- An interesting perspective, which I, however, have not developed, would be to include

Heidegger's concept of "Lichtung" from Der Ursprung des Kunstwerkes (1950) and inves
tigate whether the understanding of Transtrdmer's poem may be thus enriched.
Nordbrandt and Transtromkr 433
munikationsnatet" ["the communications network"] —an expression

that recalls the many traffic metaphors of Transtromer's poems.10
These descriptions in which houses appear together with short-lived
moments during which we sense a connection with a greater history and
an extended of time are common Transtromer's
concept throughout
poems, for example, "Inomhuset ar oandligt" ("The Indoors is Endless")

and "Svar pa brev" ("Answers to Letters"). "Inomhuset ar oandligt"
describes the history of an old relative called Erik. The year is 1827,
and in contrast to the previous poems in which we moved from pres
ent to past, we now move from past to present. The historical
poem's
orientation looks toward the past, but within its textual framing we,
as readers, look to the future. More precisely, from his death bed in
the past, Erik looks at the future where he "ser otydliga fladdrande
ansikten / som hor till kommande slakten" (265) ["sees indistinct flut
tering faces / family faces not yet born" (156)] and in doing so, spots the
narrating self walking around in Washington in the 1980s. This event
explains the tide's description of the endlessness of the "indoors" as a
metaphor for the limidess nature of the psyche—our interiority opening
new doors across time and space. Or, as expressed in the poem "Den
halvfardiga himlen" ("The Half-Finished Heaven"): "Var manniska

en halvoppen dorr / som leder till ett rum for alla"(89) ["Each man is
a half-open door / leading to a room for everyone" (65)].11 While the
interior space is positively portrayed, the actual houses themselves in this
poem are under attack. The magnificent white houses of Washington
are subject to bitter social criticism. They are described as "byggnader
i krematoriestil / dar de fattigas drom blir aska" (265) ["buildings in
crematorium style / where the dream of the poor turns to ash" (156)].
Although on a general level, the houses ofTranstromer— as well as those
of Nordbrandt—have a greater proximity to the phenomenological and

existential approaches of Bachelard and Norberg-Schulz, in this poem
we encounter an understanding of the house that can be seen in relation
to the social interpretation of Bourdieu.
In "Svar pa brev," the lyrical subject is confronted with a twenty-six

year-old letter.As he finds it, the experience of another time is connected
to a house again. Although this time, it is not a door but a window
10. See my "Trafik i og omkring Tomas Transtromers forfatterskab."

11. See Staffan Bergsten's more profound reading of "Inomhuset ar oandligt."
that is opened: "Ett hus har fem fonster: genom fyra lyser dagen klar
och stilla. Det femte vetter mot en svart himmel, aska och storm. Jag
star vid det femte fonstret. Brevet" (226) ["A house has five windows:
through four of them the day shines clear and still. The fifthfaces a
black sky, thunder and storm. I stand at the fifthwindow. The Letter"
(136)]. It is also relevant here to draw a parallel between the house and
the self, and as the I finds the letter, time and space are yet again trans
gressed: "Tiden ar ingen rak stracka utan snarare en labyrint, och om
man trycker sig mot vaggen pa ratt stalle kan man hora de skyndande
stegen och rosterna, kan man hora sig sjalv ga forbi dar pa andra sidan"
(226?) ["Time is not a straight line, it's more of a labyrinth, and if you
press close to the wall at the right place you can hear the hurrying steps
and the voices, you can hear yourself walking past there on the other
side" (136?)]. As seen earlier, the experience here is that of the presence
of something that has disappeared—a presence at a recessed level. In
the universe of Transtromer, we do not find actualized ghosts as in

Nordbrandt. However, in the poem we find the ghost-like (sp0£je-fuld)
notion that the I is going to answer the letter when he is dead.12
A feature essential to Transtromer's is that of the
poems expansion
of time and For Transtromer, there is a qualitative that
space. approach
resists logical delineation and opposes the notion of absolute linearity.
This notion is also found in his most important poem about houses,
namely "Det bla huset." The poem is not only significant in terms of
its compositional value but also biographically relevant as it refers to a
summer cottage at Runmaro in Stockholm's skerries that Transtromer
inherited. This cottage forms a central reference point in his life such
that it approaches Bachelard's focus on the house as a safe and shelter
ing basis for our lives. However, in the beginning of this poem we
notice the absence of a realistic depiction of the house. Instead, we find
ourselves at a special time: "Det ar en natt med stralande sol" (229) ["It
is a night of radiant sun" (138)], and the point of view from which the
I observes the house is extraordinary, "Som om jag vore nyligen dod"
(229) ["As if I had just died" (138)]. Once more, we are in a hermetic,
dream-like universe, visible on the compositional level. Here, the
introductory description of the house corresponds to the final image
12. Nordbrandt's poem"Afsenderadressen" (The Return Address) from Vandspejlet (1989)

similarly deals with a house, a storm, and a letter.
in which the sun blazes behind the islands. This surreal state of mind
is sustained by the composition of the poem, which is characterized by
both association and slippage. Such slippage occurs between pictures
and ships: from the description of a child to the depiction of the house
as a child's drawing to a picture of a ship and the mention of sketches
and finally toward the end the engine in the sea and a sister ship.
As we saw in the earlier poems, the dream blurs the distinct bound
aries between the concrete and the abstract, the subjective, and the
objective. The resultant multiple levels are significant in the depiction

of the house as well. We read that the walls of the house are a hazy
blue and have existed for more than eighty summers, that the wood
"ar impregnerat med fyraganger gladje och tre ganger sorg" (229) ["is
impregnated with four times joy and three times sorrow" (138)] and
that "Har inne ar oro i taket och fred i vaggarna" (229) ["there's unrest
in the ceiling and peace in the walls" (138)]. When these descriptions
are placed alongside the fact that the house is apparently repainted every
time someone who has lived in it dies and that the repainting is done
by the deceased person himself "utan pensel, inifran" (229) ["without
a brush, from inside" (138)], the house "speaks" of the lives and the
feelings that have unfolded inside it. Likewise, earlier inhabitants have
not disappeared; on the contrary, their existence has merely shifted to a
more constrained level accessed through accepting the invitation of the
poem: "Oppna dorren, stig in!" (229) ["Open the door, step in!" (138)].
Again, the important act is not only opening the house but also opening
oneself to realization and recognition beyond the ordinary. This open
is about brave to step inside the rooms that remain
ing being enough
closed in the light of consciousness or—using another reference to Lilian
Munk Rosing's reading of Derrida—able to comprehend the other who
destabilizes normal categories of time, place, being, and non-being.13
These destabilizing moves open the text to multiple interpretive strate
gies, that are thematically related to the underlying textual palimpsests
discussed in Nordbrandt's poems.
The palimpsest already lies in wait in the introductory images of
the poem is
impregnation and painting in the poem, and subsequently
filled with metaphors concerning texts, drawings, and paintings. For
example, the garden is rendered as "pagoder av ogras, framvallande
text" (229) ["pagodas of weed, welling text" (138)], the child's desire is
13. See Munk Rosing 78. Also see Bergsten 146.
to "skapa ... rita" (229) ["make ... draw" (138)], the house is described
as a child's drawing, there is an amateur painting, and finally the state
ment: "Alia skisser vill bli verkliga" (230) ["The sketches, all of them,
want to become real" (138)]. This assessment makes clear the way in
which beginnings and drafts of something ultimately unrealized exist.
At the end of the poem we read that "det finns ett systerfartyg till vart
liv, som gar en helt annan trad" (230) ["our life has a sister ship, follow
ing quite another route" (138)]. In other words, there is an assumption
that existence is multi-dimensional and functions along multiple
levels. Reality consists not only of concrete presence, but includes
that which has been, that which is still to become, and even which was
never fully realized. The palimpsest deals thematically with the double
exposure found in overlapping temporal levels, traced in the flight of
the across the overgrown The is both
boomerang garden. boomerang
that which is discarded and that which returns. Its movement is not
linear and irreversible, rather, it displays die same alternation between
appearance and disappearance as the palimpsest: between evocation and
erasure, between the simultaneity of living and death. Furthermore, as
in Nordbrandt, these double exposures take place without any form
of underlying uncanniness in the ordinary sense of the concept. The
return is not felt with fear, but rather confidence. There is a positive
experience of the coexistence and openness of history—an
apprecia
tion of the multiple dimensions beyond our normal lived perception
and experience.
Exit
This emphasis on the house as a place that opens up the multiple levels of
existence and history links the poetry of Nordbrandt and Transtromer.
In both, the house maintains a central thematic function,
appearing as
both concrete place and poetic metaphor. This co-existence stimulates
reflection on the relationships between potential pasts, presents, and
futures, parallel temporalities, and visible invisibilities. The house
also in a very real manner opens consideration of hidden spaces or
structures that are accessed the of reality. To
through transgression
cite Transtromer, the richness of the theme of the interior manifests
itself in the logic behind the image of the indoor space that seems to
be endless. As such—and in accordance with the three theoreticians
introduced at the beginning of this article—the house is far from a

mere exterior frame for the human existence, rather, it is internalized
and psychologized, that merits a more extensive involve
something
ment with Bachelard than that undertaken here. Additionally, we
have seen the thematic connections between icons, and
palimpsests,
ghosts as relevant to the experience of the house. These figures all point
toward the greater threads of history, multiple levels, instability, and
simultaneity. Even though entering the houses of Nordbrandt and
Transtromer might appear to be an act of shielding oneself from the
exterior world, on another level, it is also an act of opening oneself to
the possibility for the reappearance of the repressed. When you enter
their houses you do not feel the door slam behind you; on the contrary,
an expansive—and often dreamlike and surreal—space appears.
Works Cited
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Bergsten, Staffan. Den trdsterikagdtan: Tio essderom Tomas Transtromers lyrik. Stockholm:
FIB:s Lyrikklubb, 1989.
Bourdieu, Pierre. "The Berber House." Anthropology of Space and Place. Eds. Setha M.
Low and Denice Lawrence-Zuniga. Cornwall: Blackwell, 2003.
. "Habitus." Habitus: A Sense of Place. Eds. Jean Hiller and Emma Rooksby. Alder
shot: Ashgate, 2005.
Bredsdorff, Thomas. Med andre ord: Om Henrik Nordbrandtspoetiske sprog. ICobenhavn:
Gyldendal, 1996.
Derrida, Jacques. Spectres deMarx: L'etat de la dette, le travail du deuil et la nouvelle Inter
nationale. Paris: Galilee, 1993.
Egebak, Niels. Beckett Palimpsest: Etbidrag tilskriftensfanomenologi—en semiologisk analyse.
Kobenhavn: Arena, 1969.
Fryd, Annette. Billedtak: Om msdet mellem billedkunst og litteratur hos Gunnar Ekelof Ole
Sarvig og Per Hojholt. Hellerup: Spring, 2006.
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Norberg-Schulz, Christian. Mellomjord og himmel: En bok om steder og hus. Trondhjem:
Universitetsforlaget, 1978.
Nordbrandt, Henrik. Digte. K0benhavn: Gyldendal, 1966.
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. God's House. Trans. Henrik Nordbrandt and Alexander Taylor. Augustinus/Curb
stone, Willimantic, 1979.
.Miniaturer. 1967. Kobenhavn: Glydendal, 199+.
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. New Collected Poems. Trans. Robin Fulton. Newcasde upon Tyne: Bloodaxe
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Houses in the Poetry of Henrik Nordbrandt and Tomas Tranströmer

Author(s): Louise Mønster

always encounters houses. Not only because we

serve as a basis for recuperation, and an anchor Of course,

a separate sense of place. Nevertheless, for the majority of humankind,

The works of these two poets in particular share a common charac

therefore, allows for a greater understanding of their respective poetic

places in the human experience, it is hardly surprising that many of Nor

of Nordbrandt and Transtromer presented, what is their significance,

the house can be understood on a more general level in the works of

Gaston Bachelard, Christian Norberg-Schulz, and Pierre Bourdieu.

French philosopher Gaston Bachelard has made an exhaustive examina

place in human existence. Such is the case 'mMellom jord 0£jhimmel:

en bok om steder ojj hus (1978), which, like many of Norberg-Schultz's

i. My own translations unless otherwise noted.

these actualities. one of Bourdieu's well-known concepts, we

may say that it is our habitus2—our customs and ingrained modes of

social organization in which the role of the man is more predominant

In his study, Bourdieu anticipates the tendency in present research

different historical, cultural, economical, and political considerations.3

ing. Whether the professional approach be that of the philosopher, the

architect, or the sociologist and whether the theoretical orientation is

psychological, existential, or gendered, the house remains an extremely

important reference point in human lives. The house is closely con

2. See Bourdieu, "Habitus."

The houses of Nordbrandt and Transtromer contain hidden stories,

The Houses of Nordbrandt

We begin with the houses of Henrik Nordbrandt whose work abounds

with poems in which houses occupy prominent positions. There is not

several houses. In Nordbrandt, one finds an overwhelming

Miniatures), Syvsoverne (1969; The Sluggards), Opbrud og ankomster

"s0strene i villaen," which begins with a description of how the villa is

the same decadent elements. Similarly, we find ourselves in a preserved

tion: it is a way of making present that which is absent. As described

varelser der vender ud modglemte torve

0£[pladser som hos Chirico.

£flemte varelser malet ovenpd hinanden

indefra nutrket, de glemte ansigter

klokker der nedsmkes i klokker, stemmer

korsang indespmrret i anlebent metal.

ergdet i sta et sted i bygningen

fanget i en eller andens S0vn,

(In a greek hotel

rooms facing forgotten squares

forgotten rooms painted on top of one another

only rarely a late sunbeam hits the unknown

from inside the dark, the forgotten faces

painted on top of one another and painted on top of one another

bells being lowered into bells, voices

captured in someone's sleep,

(absent-presence). The houses stand as containers of former lives that

words, the spatiality of the poem is multidimensional—the room is

5. See my article "Vasggens (h)vide verden: Stedet i Tomas Transtromers forfatterskab."

Likewise "her h0rte du sangen for forste gang" presents a house

... hver en sten du betmder i broUgningen resonerer med en bestemt

The dream is a parallel world where persons and surroundings become

grave" (Opbrudojjankomster 16) [sunken graves] in the late evening—an

These connections between decayed houses, dream states, and the

different levels of existence and history are reiterated in the collection

Dag for dag skrider husene ned ad bjargsiden

(Day by day the houses slide down the hillside

thematically evokes die multiple layering of history. The poem presents

—For Amorgos er ikke andet end et billede