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Om Karl Vennberg, Paul de Man, litteraturen och fascismen

Abstract

Revealed? On Karl Vennberg, Paul de Man, Literature and Fascism

Fascism uses ideas that it shares with other modern and contemporary scientific, political and artistic rationalities. Not least, a  particular view of meaning-making as dependent on belonging ties it together with one of the most basic ways that modern society  understands identities and communities. This article puts texts by Karl Vennberg and Paul de Man in relation to these contexts. The revelations of their connections to fascism change the way we read their texts. But how does it change? How should it change? And what significance can this change have for our understanding of the relationship between literature and fascism? The article discusses these issues in relation to some texts by the two, in which they present poetry as a refusal to accept that meaning would depend on belonging to a community.