Modernism Becomes Contrapuntal. Eeva‐Liisa Manner's Poetic Intermediality

Eeva‐Liisa Manner (1921–1995), a prominent Finnish poet, made her modernist breakthrough after the Second World War. By focusing on Manner's poetic musicalization of literature I will offer an example of how Finnish modernism became contrapuntal. To understand the aesthetics of Manner, it is informative to place it against the background of modernism's interest in the phenomenon of intermediality that has contributed to the writing of modernist poetry associated with music. It is equally important to examine the impact of cultural periodicals that contributed to making intermedial vocabulary known to readers and thus helped in disseminating new trends across the domestic cultural scene. I also situate Manner's poetics in relation to T. S. Eliot's musical analogies. Finally, the interpretations of Manner's poems entitledBachandThe Chromatic Levelswill sum up my examination of Manner's preoccupation with adapting international models for the musicalization of literature.