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"And I walk in Ambarona, in Tauremorna, in Aldalómë" : Fictional Places in Poetry

Publication at Faculty of Arts |
2016

Abstract

The paper discusses fictional places in poetry. It defines poetic fictional places in comparison to fictional localities in narrative fiction, as well as to poems describing places of the actual world.

The first key topic is the relation between the fictional place of a poem and a "real" places that can be visited - that is, what is the role of places of the actual world in the construction of a poem of "speculative poetry". The second line of thought concerns the role of the name of a locality in recognizing said locality as an imaginary place, as well as the significance of fictional, obscure names for emphasising the fonetic and "phonosemantic" elements of the poem.

The third topic is the interaction between the fictional place and the lyrical subject; especially characterizing the situation in which the separation of the lyrical subject from the author and reader, and its likening to the tradition character of fiction is made easier by the location's apparent fictionality.