Gerontological Poetry of the Scandinavian Welfare State

Existing ventures into Scandinavian gerontological fiction have tended to focus on narrative prose. This chapter argues that poetry constitutes a neglected, but important tributary of this regional archive. Theoretically the chapter addresses the significance of the lyric genre’s representation of later life. Inspired by Werner Wolf’s prototypical conceptualization of the lyric (2005), it proposes that gerontological poetry—poetry about aging and older age—is characterized by three tendential attributes: It favors a synchronous outlook on older age, tends to approach older age through a “monoperspectival point of view of one consciousness” (Wolf 37), and tends to highlight fluctuating dimensions of older age. These theses inform the subsequent analytical survey of contemporary Scandinavian gerontological poetry, which adds nuance to the success story of the welfare state regime: a longer, more secure life for many citizens and more optimistic attitudes toward older age. The archive notes a set of associated new challenges, suggesting that welfare states may have intensified the existential anxieties of older age by producing new and, it seems, increasingly untenable expectations for quality of life. This finding underlines the relevance of gerontological poetry due to the lyric genre’s capacity to nurture this existential and individualized reflection.