Haarautuvat merkitykset. Puukuvasto Lassi Nummen lyriikassa

Abstract

Väitöskirja on ensimmäinen tutkimus, jossa kirjailija Lassi Nummen runotuotanto on kokonaisuudessaan tarkastelun kohteena. Aineistona on 21 runokokoelmaa ja kolme yhteisnidettä.

Tutkimus keskittyy Nummen runojen puukuvastoon. Puukuvaston avulla käsitellään kaikkia Nummen tuotannon keskeisiä teemoja. Runojen puut taipuvat niin ajan kokemisen, kuoleman jäsentämisen kuin metafyysisen oivalluksen vertauksiksi. Toisinaan puu esitetään esimerkiksi inhimillisenä. Taustalla on myös tunnistettavaa puuaiheista symboliikkaa Raamatusta ja antiikin kirjallisuudesta. Nummen runoissa on kerroksellinen ja monisyinen viittausverkosto esimerkiksi taiteeseen ja mytologiaan. Poliittisten allegorioiden puut sitovat runon aiheen historialliseen viitetapahtumaan.

Väitöskirjan tavoite on selvittää, mitä eri tehtäviä puun käytöllä on runoissa ja miten puukuvasto rakentuu näihin tehtäviin sopivaksi. Näkökulmia saadaan esimerkiksi ympäristöestetiikasta, uskontotieteistä tai ajan filosofisista pohdinnoista sen mukaan, mitä puu kulloisessakin esiintymisyhteydessä kuvaa. Kielikuvien analyysillä osoitetaan merkityksenmuodostumisen keinot sekä muotoillaan tulokset tulkinnoiksi.

Keskeiset teoriat ja menetelmät liittyvät metaforisuuteen. Tutkimuksen työkaluksi hahmotellaan uusi semanttisen yhteisalueen käsite. Semanttinen yhteisalue pohjautuu metaforisissa ilmauksissa tapahtuvaan merkitysten limittymiseen ja sen kautta syntyvään mielikuvaan samankaltaisuudesta. Metodina semanttinen yhteisalue palvelee sekä puukuvaston rakenteen erittelyä että merkityksenmuodostumisen analyysia. Lisäksi sen kautta voidaan perustella temaattisia tulkintoja. Semanttisen yhteisalueen mallia on mahdollista hyödyntää laajemminkin kielikuvien tutkimisessa.

Branching meanings. Tree imagery in the poetic works of Lassi Nummi

My doctoral thesis is the first one to examine the poetic works of Lassi Nummi, a Finnish modern poet, as a whole. My source material consists of 20 poetic works and three volumes of collected poems, in which the works are included with minor alterations. In my study, I shall focus on such poems in Nummi´s works in which trees either are a central theme or appear otherwise.

Selecting tree imagery as the object of my study is justified by the frequency of how often trees appear in the source material: they are a repeating theme and stand out in Nummi´s lyric poetry. All the central themes of Nummi´s works are dealt with tree imagery. Trees often occupy a central role in building up the poems´ theme and meaning. The tree imagery entails the concrete occurrences of trees in the description of landscape or scenery, various tropes of trees, and the symbolic dimension associated with trees.

My research problem is to identify the different functions the use of trees occupies in Nummi´s poems and to analyse how the tree imagery is structured to match these functions. The goal of my thesis is to explain the network of meanings trees possess in Nummi´s poetic works. By analysing tropes, it is possible to identify how the meaning builds up from individual components. Based on the results, it is possible to both identify the meanings and to formulate the actual interpretations based on the meanings.

The key concepts of my study are tied with the metaphorical properties of language and their manifestations. I begin by looking at the history of research into metaphorical expressions as well as the central issues of each approach. I then proceed to formulate the concept of common semantic ground for the purposes of my study based on the various scientific views on metaphors. In formulating the concept of common semantic ground, I have paid attention to both how the concepts are argumented and how they relate to earlier views. Additionally, I have exemplified how my concept can be structured into graphical representations. Based on these definitions, I have then proceeded to apply my concept in a more detailed analysis of the source material.

The common semantic ground is based on both the overlapping fields of meanings in the metaphorical expressions and on the idea of similarity, which is established through analogies in the contrasted phenomena. A well-established paradigm about the relationship between the vehicle and tenor exists in the study of metaphor, but there have been few attempts to establish patterns of analysis in the study of metaphorical properties of a language. The vehicle and tenor are conjoined by their overlapping fields of meanings, which I call the common semantic ground. This common ground contains those elements from both the source and target domains that enable a both meaningful connection and the mapping between the two domains. For example, in the expression "puu ojennetuin käsin"(cf. "a tree with outstretched arms"), the metaphor connects tree and man and the common semantic ground is the set of properties shared by both concepts that enable the connection. As metaphorical items, the boughs of a tree and the arms of a man are portrayed as analogous.

As a method the common semantic ground serves not only the closer representation of the use of tree imagery, but also the analysis of constructing metaphor´s meaning. Additionally, it can also be used as a means to argument thematic interpretations via the different layers of the component parts in the imagery. Although the goal of my thesis is not theoretical- methodological, it is likely that the concept of common semantic ground can also be applied more extensively in the analysis of tropes.

The theoretical foundation of my study draws from multiple, comparatively different disciplines. The central sources draw from literature studies and linguistics as well as from theme-specific sources. The theme-specific sources are chosen based on the way trees in the source material form a figurative expression which spans to structure multiple themes. Consequently, relevant views can also be gained from environmental aesthetics, studies of religious and spiritual, and the philosophies contemporary to Nummi based on what trees symbolise in each particular context.

My study is organised into themes. The disposition stems from the source material: the poems have been divided into thematical sections based on the meanings and contents the trees convey in each theme. These themes are the various functions of trees as part of the landscape (e.g. as the poem´s point of spatial reference, pointer of geographical location, and as the structuring agent of observation hierarchy), tree as an image of man, the spiritual and metaphysical meanings, the metaphors used to concretise time and death as well as the esthetical, political and national dimensions of the tree imagery.

One of the key findings is that the number and frequency of how often the tree imagery occurs in the various collected works as well as the ways of usage vary between the different poetic works. There can also be considerable variation inside each works. Additionally, the poems may also carry conventional meanings associated with trees in earlier literature and other cultures.

The tree imagery in Nummi´s poems lends itself to metaphorical expressions of experiencing time, understanding death, and expressions of metaphorical perceptions. Also conventional tree symbolism can be identified in the background. This introduces its own dimension into the various meanings of the poems. Meanings stemming from different origins can for example juxtapose each other or form multiple layers in the imagery. In a number of cases, the tree imagery has its roots in the trees familiar to us from the Judeo-Christian and Greco-Roman traditions. The poems have a layered and multidimensional network of references to for example arts, history and mythology. In Nummi´s later works, trees often coexist simultaneously as parts of the physical nature and the metaphysical dimension.

At times, the tree imagery gains cumulating layers of meanings. This is the case in the ekphrasis-poems, in which a visual tree portrayed in a painting also becomes the foundation of the poem´s metaphor. The various motives stemming from the work of art may reside only as components of the description of the physical world, or deepen into the seed image of the poem´s metaphors. Innovative uses of tree imagery are for example the walk towards the birch woods: the steps across the meadow deepen into a spiritual-metaphysical life´s journey, or the trees of political allegories which tie the poem to a concrete event in history.

In many of Nummi´s poems, the way of perceiving the trees has a central role in their description. At times, trees are portrayed through an unusual experience as e.g. animalistic or cognitive. The lyrical self judges and applies subjective interpretations to observations and builds a subjective mental landscape based on the observations. Descriptions of nature and scenery deepen into new kind of seeing: themes revolving around world views, emotional states and different meditations are reflected in the landscape that deepens into metaphysical. Some of the poems are purely visual recordings of feelings and impressions of nature. In places, the tree forms the central theme for poems sharing common imagery, or it joins several themes into a coherent set.

It is not possible to clearly separate the tree imagery into concrete flora or trees used metaphorically. Images following each other inside the same poem shift between the concrete and abstract layers. The same tree can alternatively or simultaneously be a physical tree, a component of a new metaphorical phrase, or a conventional symbol. The different layers of imagery do not necessarily exclude each other, even if one of the layers was to gain a dominant role in their interpretation.

The metafictional analysis of tropes is manifested in different ways. Some of the tropes contain clichéd verbal imagery that is perhaps used in a parodical sense, and which both seeks playfully bombastic tones and tries to convey an image of spontaneous experience. Some poems identify alternative interpretations for the metaphorical expressions or deny the meaning of conventional expressions altogether. Tropes are also named, and analysing their themes introduces a new metalyrical layer in the poem. Additionally, the poems can contain explicit commentary on the limitations of conventional metaphors while suggesting new, alternative meanings.

I conclude with an observation that very different means of metaphorical expression can revert back to certain basic components. These can be for example linguistic associations, parallels of individual properties, or direct identification. Poems with similar expressional structure produce different contents; same phrases gain different meanings and selecting different vehicles can still represent the same tenor. Additionally, joint metaphorical variants, which conjoin two or more metaphorical expressions, are constructed. All of the above results in a rich and complex set of metaphorical connections in the tree imagery.