Abstract
Death, according to Jacques Derrida, is that which both limits life and makes it possible. Death is consequently not the opposite of life, nor the truth or fulfillment of it. Death is intertwined, sensibly and seriously, with living. How is this materialized in the poetry and paintings of the Swedish Writer Harriet Löwehjelm (1897-1918)? I discuss this taking my point of departure in Löwehjelm’s lyrics, images, her unique artistic fragments. She led a life all to short that still flourished when it comes to creativity. Even though she died prematurely, in tuberculosis, she left thought provoking existential images to the afterworld from her deathbed at the sanatorium in Rånäs, Sweden. Maybe one has to live close to death to really appreciate life and understand what it is to be human? Maybe only the one already tasting the eternal can describe the shortcomings of a human being? Maybe the nearly dead is destined to guide us through the life that we take for granted? In his last interview, Derrida expresses theoretically, what Löwenhjelm concretizes in her poetry and paintings: “The trace I leave signifies to me at once my death, either to come or already come upon me, and the hope that this trace survives me. This is not a striving for immortality; it’s something structural. I leave a piece of paper behind, I go away, I die: it is impossible to escape this structure, it is the unchanging form of my life … I live my death in writing.”
Presenters
Maria EssungerAssociate Professor, Senior Lecturer, Researcher, Faculty of Theology, Uppsala University, Sweden
Details
Presentation Type
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session
Theme
KEYWORDS
DERRIDA, POETRY, PAINTINGS
