GOTHIC ELEMENTS IN MARE KANDRE'S DELIRIA

Mattias Fyhr, PhD-student at Stockholm University, Sweden.

In this article I want to show how Gothic elements are used in Mare Kandre's Deliria (1992). ¹ I will also compare this book with some postmodern literature.
   Mare Kandre is a Swedish writer of prose and poetry. She was born in 1962 in Sweden. The surname "Kandre" is Estonian. Mare's mother escaped from Estonia to Sweden in 1944. Mare Kandre has published eight books since her first one in 1984, and several of these have been translated into other languages. Her books are written in a language between prose and poetry and several of them contain Gothic elements. Here I will discuss one of Kandre's more poetic works, Deliria, and focus on the view expressed in this book. The view is that poetry helps us to see the world in a deeper sense. Thereby poetry makes it possible for us to live a better life and to create a better world. But when we really see the world, we also see things we fear, in ourselves and in the world. Then we run the risk of experiencing the world as Gothic.
   Looking at the world in this deep sense means for instance seeing that the world is made of structures of circles, multi-layers and repetition. These structures are also used in Gothic, for example in Gothic literature, but then they are not shown as positive. Instead they are used to create the terrible atmosphere of decay, doom and insolvability that is typical of Gothic. In Deliria these structures are not always used to create this atmosphere. Instead they are shown as something positive. But sometimes the structures are used to create a Gothic atmosphere.
   Deliria wants us to become free from a destructive view of the world that can be called postmodern because it is a world where everything tend to lack meaning and depth, a world where important things become background. Postmodernism is a term that may mean many different, also positive, things.

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