Some aspects of the poetic multilingualism of contemporary Estonian poetry

ABSTRACT

The self-image and study of Estonian literature are characterized by postmonolingual tensions: while there are increasingly more multilingual approaches, the traditional perspective is to focus exclusively on Estonian-language literature. The latter does not encompass the reality of the literary field because it leaves out authors who write in multiple languages, as well as other manifest and latent expressions of multilingual poetics. In contemporary Estonian poetry, words, phrases, and other linguistic nuances from different languages frequently intertwine with Estonian. By analyzing seven of such multilingual poems from the perspective of literary multilingualism studies, this article will highlight and compare three poetic techniques of code-switching present in contemporary Estonian poetry, pointing out the similarities and differences between such poetic structures and mechanisms of meaning-making.

KEYWORDS:

• Poetic multilingualism
• code-switching
• trans-scripting
• Estonian poetry

Acknowledgments

I would like to thank the anonymous reviewers for their most helpful comments. This work was supported by the Estonian Research Council, grant No. PRG1106.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Correction Statement

This article has been republished with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.

Notes

1. This is a notion that is, in part, influenced by the history of unstable political borders in the often-occupied territories of Estonia. The geographical perspective view has been elaborated on an even larger scale in the academic series of books analyzing Baltic literary culture (see Lukas 2021a).

2. Alternatively, as Tiit Hennoste (2021) points out, instead of discussing the specificities of a one and only Estonian literature, we could also recognize that there can be multiple Estonian literatures with different degrees of overlap and contact.

3. The in-between situation that emerges on the borders of multiple languages and cultures is constantly thematized in Ivanov’s work. See the analyses of his works and reception in Kotjuh (2013), Kõvamees (2016), Laanes (2020), and Laanes and Monticelli (2017).

4. Helgesson (2022) himself proposes a perspectival theory of regimes of comprehensibility, which focuses on the influence of different (linguistic) contexts and perspectives on a multilingual work.

5. A more comprehensive terminology to address code-switching in poetry would be useful, however, the development of such terms will not be undertaken in this article. Here, I will mostly be using the term thorough code-switching, which serves the purpose of this article’s level of analysis. In an analysis with a slightly different approach, however, terms such as intra-verse switching and inter-verse switching (following the example of Myers-Scotton 2006, 239) would be useful as well.

6. This would be analogous to an analysis which brings out different poetic devices in a poem, while not acknowledging their part in the poetic whole.

7. As is usual for poetry, drawing rigid borders between categories is impossible, so some poems can be characterized as employing several of these techniques.

8. Kotjuh has also written poetry in Ukrainian.

9. Languages will be marked in the translations as follows: Estonian, Russian, Finnish, English. All the translations were made by the author of this article.

10. As of May 2023, the video is available online: https://youtu.be/_vA_DvyGgAc

11. At the time of publishing Kruusa’s poem and during the writing of this article, freelancers are in an unprivileged position to be eligible for health insurance and other social guarantees in Estonia. For more, see: https://www.eaa.ee/en/social-guarantees

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Saara Lotta Linno

Saara Lotta Linno is a Junior Researcher in Comparative Literary Studies at the Institute of Cultural Research, University of Tartu.