Abstract
This article explores the connections between Nietzsche’s Also Sprach Zarathustra and Tove Jansson and the world of the Moomins. It begins with a short summary of the impact of Nietzsche in the Nordic countries and of his most important book, focusing on passages that are of particular relevance for the analyses that follow. It then proceeds to explore its meaning and significance for Jansson in three sections. The first concerns Atos Wirtanen, the writer and politician with whom she lived for ten years, and who encouraged her to publish her first book, while he himself was completing a book on Nietzsche. In the second section, the article analyzes an early semi-autobiographical literary experiment from the Jansson family archive that displays her as a passionate reader of Nietzsche long before her meeting with Wirtanen. In the third and last section, the framework of the Zarathustra narrative is used to interpret some of the figures and scenes from the Moomin books.
References
Beyer, Harald. 1958–1962. Nietzsche og Norden. Vols. 1–2. Bergen: Universitetsforlaget.Search in Google Scholar
Chadwick, Whitney & Isabelle Isabelle De Courtivron (eds.). 1993. Significant Others: Creativity and Intimate Partnership. London: Thames & Hudson.Search in Google Scholar
Jansson, Tove. 1962. Tales from Moominvalley. T. Warburton, tr. London: Puffin Books. 1973. Originally published as Det osynliga barnet och andra berättelser (Helsingfors, Schildts), 1962.Search in Google Scholar
Laajarinne, Jukka. 2011. Mumin och tillvarons gåta. J. Orlov, Swedish tr. Stockholm, Alfabeta: Originally published in Finnish as Muumit ja olemisen arvoitus. 2008.Search in Google Scholar
Lindén, Claudia. 2002. Om kärlek: Litteratur, sexualitet och politik hos Ellen Key. Stockholm: Brutus Östlings Bokförlag.Search in Google Scholar
Nietzsche, Friedrich. 2005. Thus Spoke Zarathustra. G. Parkes, tr. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Originally published as Also Sprach Zarathustra, in Nietzsche, Kritische Studienausgabe Vol. 4, Berlin, Walter de Gruyter, 1988.Search in Google Scholar
Taipale, Joona. 2016. Social Mirrors: Tove Jansson’s The Invisible Child and the Importance of Being Seen. Scandinavian Psychoanalytical Review 39(1). 13–25.10.1080/01062301.2016.1227195Search in Google Scholar
Westin, Boel. 1988. Familjen i dalen: Tove Janssons muminvärld. Stockholm: Bonniers.Search in Google Scholar
Westin, Boel. 2014. Tove Jansson: Life, Art, Words. S. Mazzarella, tr. London: Sort of Books. Originally published as Tove Jansson: Ord, bild, liv (Stockholm, Bonniers), 2008.Search in Google Scholar
Wirtanen, Atos. 1945. Nietzsche den otidsenlige. Stockholm: Bonniers.Search in Google Scholar
© 2019 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston