Close-reading of non-existing texts is a political act

Close-reading of non-existing texts is a political act. Close-reading is in itself a political act. Non-existing texts are in themselves a political act. A political act is not in itself a political act. Existing texts are not in themselves political. When I use an existing text it ceases to exist. I am close-reading it. I am close-reading it until it ceases to exist. I am close-reading it until it is no longer a close-reading. Then it is a non-existing text. I transfer it to me. Then it is my text. But there is no close-reading. It is not a political act. I must keep it outside myself and simultaneously make it unfamiliar. I must remove the tone of the other text. I must remove the I of the other text. I must mount the tone in the other text. I must mount the I in the other text. I panic. What I assert is rhetoric and lacks substance. What I assert is rhetoric and lacks substance. Everything is rhetoric. Everything lacks substance. I assert. If the text lacks pronouns it must be filled with pronouns. If the text lacks referentiality it must be filled with referentiality. If the text lacks historicity it must be filled with historicity. If the text lacks intertextuality it must be filled with intertextuality. If the text lacks time and locality it must be filled with time and locality. If the text lacks narrativity it must be filled with narrativity. The text is now pronominal/referential/historicizing/intertextual/temporal/spatial/narrative. It takes place. It is an act. But not a political act. It has a language. I think of the distance as the crow flies between Smygehuk (the point farthest south in Sweden) and Treriksröset (the point farthest north in Sweden), or between Treriksröset and Smygehuk. I think of August Strindberg. I think of Ingmar Bergman. I think of Gunnar Ekelöf. I think of Thomas Tranströmer. I think of Edith Södergran. I think of Karin Boye. I think of Ann Jäderlund. I think of Katarina Frostenson. I think. And in that I think these texts receive a materiality. To me. So much naturalism. So much bourgeois drama. So much expressionist drama. So much modernism. So much postmodernism. Nothing of this means anything. And through the fact that it does not mean anything the texts receive their political character. 1930s. In the magazine Spectrum there is a fusion between psychoanalysis, architectural functionalism (the Swedish Welfare State), and cultural radicalism. Modernism, proletarian novel authors. In the political association of cultural radicals Clarté the social realists prevail before the war. Form is bourgeois. 1960s. (During the 1950s, the concrete poetry of ÷yvind Fahlström circulated in copies and transcripts.) 1963 and 1964 the concrete poets Bengt Emil Johnsson and Jarl Hammarberg make their debut. And side by side new-simple poetry with a lot of wettex-cloths and kitchen tables. Everyday life and words. By the end of the 1960s student revolt, Vietnam War and a closing of the ranks. Political realism. Form is bourgeois. 1980s. Deconstruction and romanticism. Stig Larsson brings us to a place where perversion, euphoria, and I-lessness meet. Where perversion, rhetoric, and euphoria meet. Where I-lessness, perversion, and rhetoric meet. Ann Jäderlund brings us to a place where romanticism, language games, and surfeit meet. Where meter, language-games, and romanticism meet. Where surfeit, meter, and language games meet. Form is a-political. 1990s (the Welfare State is liquidated). Helena Eriksson brings us to a place where caesura, geometry, and idiosyncrasy meet. Where blackness, geometry, and idiosyncrasy meet. Where idiosyncrasy, blackness, and caesura meet. Lars Mikael Raattamaa brings us to a place where periphery, materiality, and literality meet. Where materiality, literality, and expressivity meet. Where expressivity, materiality, and periphery meet. Form is political. (The blackmailing strategy — not seldom...