Att läsa "fascistisk" poesi – och finna något annat: Örnulf Tigerstedts dualism ur ett kunskapsteoretiskt perspektiv

TheFinland-Swedish poet Örnulf Tigerstedt (1900–1962) is known for his fascism, althoughhe himself considered other concepts more adequate, such as Caesarism,monarchism and authoritarianism. Nevertheless, his reputation seems to bothattract extreme right-wing readers of today and deter the majority of poetry readers.The aim in this article is to problematize the role of the reader and point outa dualistic pattern in Tigerstedt’s poetry, which complicates the picture. Iwant to raise questions about the ethics in reading poetry; how can we ensurethat our reading does not become categorical and ideological where the poemitself is complex? My point of departure is epistemological rather thanpolitical, i.e. focus is on man’s possibilities and problems related toacquiring knowledge. I analyze two clusters of themes: war, power, violence andart, culture, form. My examplesare taken from Vid gränsen (1928), Block och öde (1931), De heliga vägarna (1933) and Sista etappen (1940).