• English
    • svenska
  • English 
    • English
    • svenska
  • Login
View Item 
  •   Home
  • Student essays / Studentuppsatser
  • Department of Literature, History of Ideas, and Religion / Institutionen för litteratur, idéhistoria och religion
  • Kandidatuppsater / Institutionen för litteratur, idéhistoria och religion
  • View Item
  •   Home
  • Student essays / Studentuppsatser
  • Department of Literature, History of Ideas, and Religion / Institutionen för litteratur, idéhistoria och religion
  • Kandidatuppsater / Institutionen för litteratur, idéhistoria och religion
  • View Item
JavaScript is disabled for your browser. Some features of this site may not work without it.

The heartbeat under your necktie – fysiska föremål och den sociala miljön i Ted Koosers "Delights & Shadows"

The heartbeat under your necktie – physical objects and the social environment in Ted Kooser’s "Delights & Shadows"

Abstract
This essay examines through a sociological perspective how physical objects in Ted Kooser’s poetry collection "Delights & Shadows" can be used to depict the characters’ social environment. This is done by examining the physical objects found in 25 poems, the relationships between subjects and objects, and how this relationship can describe the social environment. The essay also examines how the relationship between subjects, objects, and the presence of the social environment within the text affects the reader experience. The physical objects are examined with Bill Brown’s Thing Theory as "things" that stop working for humans, when their flow within the circuits of production and distribution, consumption and exhibition is arrested, however momentarily. This makes the objects assert themselves as "things" and points to a changed relation to the subject, and thus exposes a subject-object relation through interaction, enabling an interpretation of the character’s social environment. The analysis of this essay uses research from the interdisciplinary field of material culture to examine the relationships between, and meaning of, subjects and physical objects. The field of material culture is centered around how material objects made or used by humans, and their properties, are central for understanding our culture and social relationships. The result shows that the frequent use of physical objects in the poems can disclose the social environment that the characters figure in. Through the text’s common theme of everyday life observations the reader is placed in different environments and observes as the characters interact with objects, both in direct physical ways and through indirect emotional interactions, memories and fetishization. The prominent use of metonyms over metaphors firmly establishes the text as realistically depicting events instead of relying on poetical imagery. The metonymic examples in the text rely on the associations between characters and physical objects in order for the reader to understand the context and the subject-object relationships. This in turn creates conditions for the interpretation of the social environment within the text, without sacrificing the poetic language.
Degree
Student essay
URI
https://hdl.handle.net/2077/86128
Collections
  • Kandidatuppsater / Institutionen för litteratur, idéhistoria och religion
View/Open
Kandidatuppsats (491.6Kb)
Date
2025-04-03
Author
Bajric, Amar
Keywords
Poesi
Ted Kooser
Materiell kultur
Litteratursociologi
Tingteori
Bill Brown
Language
swe
Metadata
Show full item record

DSpace software copyright © 2002-2016  DuraSpace
Contact Us | Send Feedback
Theme by 
Atmire NV
 

 

Browse

All of DSpaceCommunities & CollectionsBy Issue DateAuthorsTitlesSubjectsThis CollectionBy Issue DateAuthorsTitlesSubjects

My Account

LoginRegister

DSpace software copyright © 2002-2016  DuraSpace
Contact Us | Send Feedback
Theme by 
Atmire NV