National Identity and Nomadic Subjectivity in Norwegian War Poetry

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

1) The bipolar structure of the article leads to an oversimplification. WW1 and WW2 poetry from other nations, notably colonial powers like England and France, will certainly have national poetry aligned with the Norwegian examples. Yet, poetry from the colonies or marginal territories in those country also reflect a divided subjectivity of people being forced to fight a war for a land that is not really theirs. At least an awareness of the difference between Norway and such countries/nations/homelands should be included, also taking into account the very recent Norwegian independence in 1905 and the fact that King Haakon is the first king of modern Norway, all of which adds to the tone of the national self-awareness. Also the internal battle between Norwegians should be mentioned: Quisling vs the resistance.  There is a lack of complexity in the otherwise succinct and detailed analyses.

2) The first part is way too long and hence too repetitive.; could be reduced with 50% without losing the point. (NB there is a typo in lines 196 and 248: 'du' should be 'deg'.)

3) The second part of the article is more general in its treatment of modern subjectivity, not only released by war experiences, but also released by such calamities. Also, there are many more theoretical references and comparative outlooks to international poetry than in the narrow first part.. This creates an  imbalance in the relation between the two parts which seriously weakens the otherwise interesting argument. (NB a typo in line 542: 'fly' should be 'flee'; and a messy syntax in lines 763ff)

Author Response

1) The bipolar structure of the article leads to an oversimplification. WW1 and WW2 poetry from other nations, notably colonial powers like England and France, will certainly have national poetry aligned with the Norwegian examples. Yet, poetry from the colonies or marginal territories in those country also reflect a divided subjectivity of people being forced to fight a war for a land that is not really theirs. At least an awareness of the difference between Norway and such countries/nations/homelands should be included, also taking into account the very recent Norwegian independence in 1905 and the fact that King Haakon is the first king of modern Norway, all of which adds to the tone of the national self-awareness. Also the internal battle between Norwegians should be mentioned: Quisling vs the resistance.  There is a lack of complexity in the otherwise succinct and detailed analyses

My response: I have provided additional context and metadata in both the introduction and the concluding remarks. Furthermore, I have removed my previous reflections on World War I and World War II poems from other nations to avoid oversimplifications.

The first part is way too long and hence too repetitive.; could be reduced with 50% without losing the point. (NB there is a typo in lines 196 and 248: 'du' should be 'deg'.)

My response: I have corrected typos and deleted a few paragraphs from the first part, but I retained most of the close readings of the World War II poems. This is because these poems have not been closely examined from this perspective before, and the analytical observations made contribute significantly to my main argument.

3) The second part of the article is more general in its treatment of modern subjectivity, not only released by war experiences, but also released by such calamities. Also, there are many more theoretical references and comparative outlooks to international poetry than in the narrow first part.. This creates an  imbalance in the relation between the two parts which seriously weakens the otherwise interesting argument. (NB a typo in line 542: 'fly' should be 'flee'; and a messy syntax in lines 763ff)

My response: I have corrected the typo and added more references in the first part to address the imbalance. This includes references to Butler's "Frames of War."

 

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

Whereas exploring the idea of nomadic subjectivity in modern Norwegian war poetry is an interesting idea, I believe this article requires significant improvements before it can be published. I list my concerns below:
1. The Author would like to compare a collection of Norwegian occupation poems from World War II with poems about the war written in the 2000's. Whereas I see the point of such a comparative study (to show the development of subjectivity), the Author has to be careful so that their conclusions do not come across as truisms. The Author admits themselves (in the article's last part) that, of course, those poems will be different, merely due to the fact that they were written in different historical periods and under different political circumstances. Of course, Norwegian poems written and distributed illegally during the Nazi occupation are going to be different from texts written eighty yeas later in a globalized, but still (partially) free world. Of course, the "us-them" dichotomies is what the 1940 poems are building upon, not only because of the political context, but also because those structural dichotomies were first deconstructed in the 1960's, etc. etc. Therefore, i believe the Author should include more metatext, to ensure that his analysis does not come across as a collection of already well-established truths.
2. I believe the Author does not justify well enough how they choose the material for their corpus. "The small number of poems that will be analyzed is due to the need to carefully close read the poems" (verse 43 on page 2) is just not good enough, and opens for an accusation that the Author is cherry-picking. Why does the author choose exactly those two modern poems that they choose? It is unclear for me. I would therefore suggest to clarify the criteria used in the process of corpus building.
3. It is unclear for me why the Author quotes some (why those, and not others?) of the poems almost in their entirety, and how this contributes to the research. Furthermore, I fail to understand how an extensive quote and discussion of a poem by Louise Glück (pages 10-11) helps to contextualize the analysis.
4. Overall, the article gives an impression that it has been submitted in a hurry. For example: the author Priya Bains is called "Brai" twice on page 16 and the Author writes about "Bain's" poem on page 11. The page number in the Glück-reference on page 16 is missing and marked with "??". The references to primary sources are absent from the Bibliography.
5. The language of the article seems at times clumsy, for example in footnote 2 on page 6, where the Author writes about "the 1937 Moscow process". This is a direct and unfortunate translation of the Norwegian term "Moskvaprosessene", which correctly translates to the Moscow trials. I suggest a purely linguistic proof reading od the article.

Overall: the idea is good, the potential is there and this might me an interesting article, but at this point, it reads more like a draft. I suggest rethinking, rewriting and resubmitting.

Comments on the Quality of English Language

I have stated my concerns above, see point 5.

Author Response

1. The Author would like to compare a collection of Norwegian occupation poems from World War II with poems about the war written in the 2000's. Whereas I see the point of such a comparative study (to show the development of subjectivity), the Author has to be careful so that their conclusions do not come across as truisms. The Author admits themselves (in the article's last part) that, of course, those poems will be different, merely due to the fact that they were written in different historical periods and under different political circumstances. Of course, Norwegian poems written and distributed illegally during the Nazi occupation are going to be different from texts written eighty yeas later in a globalized, but still (partially) free world. Of course, the "us-them" dichotomies is what the 1940 poems are building upon, not only because of the political context, but also because those structural dichotomies were first deconstructed in the 1960's, etc. etc. Therefore, i believe the Author should include more metatext, to ensure that his analysis does not come across as a collection of already well-established truths.

My response: I have added more metatext and context in both the introduction and the concluding remarks. I retained the 'us-them' dichotomies because these structures, although theoretically deconstructed in the 1960s, are still actively utilized in both poetry (as exemplified by Ali) and politics.

2. I believe the Author does not justify well enough how they choose the material for their corpus. "The small number of poems that will be analyzed is due to the need to carefully close read the poems" (verse 43 on page 2) is just not good enough, and opens for an accusation that the Author is cherry-picking. Why does the author choose exactly those two modern poems that they choose? It is unclear for me. I would therefore suggest to clarify the criteria used in the process of corpus building.

My response: I have included a more thorough argument for the choice of materials in the introduction. 

3. It is unclear for me why the Author quotes some (why those, and not others?) of the poems almost in their entirety, and how this contributes to the research. Furthermore, I fail to understand how an extensive quote and discussion of a poem by Louise Glück (pages 10-11) helps to contextualize the analysis.

My response: I have clarified my reasons for quoting certain poems. In addition, I have removed the quote from the poem by Glück.

4. Overall, the article gives an impression that it has been submitted in a hurry. For example: the author Priya Bains is called "Brai" twice on page 16 and the Author writes about "Bain's" poem on page 11. The page number in the Glück-reference on page 16 is missing and marked with "??". The references to primary sources are absent from the Bibliography.
5. The language of the article seems at times clumsy, for example in footnote 2 on page 6, where the Author writes about "the 1937 Moscow process". This is a direct and unfortunate translation of the Norwegian term "Moskvaprosessene", which correctly translates to the Moscow trials. I suggest a purely linguistic proof reading od the article.

My response to comments 4 and 5: I have improved the language and updated the list of references.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 2

Reviewer 2 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

I think the article has improved significantly after the revisions. I believe it can be published in its current form and have no further comments.

Author Response

Comments: "I think the article has improved significantly after the revisions. I believe it can be published in its current form and have no further comments."

My response: Thank you! I have previously mentioned on this platform that I have improved the article by following the suggested comments. In particular, my discussion has been enhanced by engaging further with Røst's research. Additionally, I have added a footnote to explain the use of "ö"