In a 1997 Swedish edition of Aniara literary scholar Johan Wrede writes that the neologism Aniara is Harry Martinson's own invention. Martinson came up with the word years before writing the work while reading astronomer Arthur Eddington, then giving it the meaning as the "name for the space in which the atoms moves". A preface to a 2005 Italian edition claims that the title comes from ancient Greek ἀνιαρός, "sad, despairing", plus special resonances that the sound "a" had for Martinson.
Interpretation
According to Aadu Ott and Lars Broman at the International Planetarium Society, Aniara is an effort to " between science and poetry, between the wish to understand and the difficulty to comprehend". Martinson translates scientific imagery into the poem: for example, the "curved space" from Albert Einstein's general theory of relativity is likely an inspiration for Martinson's description of the cosmos as "a bowl of glass", according to the Nobel Prize Foundation. Martinson also said he was influenced by Paul Dirac.
The poem
The poem consists of 103 cantos, each relating the tragedy of a large passenger spacecraft originally bound for Mars with a cargo of colonists from the ravaged Earth. After an accident, the ship is ejected from the Solar System and into an existential struggle. The style is symbolic, sweeping and innovative for its time, with creative use of neologisms to suggest the science fictional setting. The first 29 cantos of Aniara had previously been published in Martinson's collection Cikada, under the title Sången om Doris och Mima, relating the departure from Earth, the accidental near-collision with an asteroid and ejection from the solar system, the first few years of increasing despair and distractions of the passengers, until news is received of the destruction of their home port, and perhaps of Earth itself. According to Martinson, he dictated the initial cycle as in a fever after a troubling dream, affected by the Cold War and the Soviet suppression of the 1956 Hungarian revolution; in another recounting, he said the first 29 cantos were said to be inspired by his observation of the Andromeda Galaxy. A major theme is that of art, symbolised by the semi-mystical machinery of the Mima, who relieves the ennui of crew and passengers with scenes of far-off times and places, and whose operator is also the sometimes naïve main narrator. The rooms of Mima, according to Martinson, represent different kinds of life styles or forms of consciousness. The accumulated destruction the Mima witnesses impels her to destroy herself in despair, to which she, the machine, is finally moved by the white tears of the granite melted by the phototurb which annihilates their home port, the great city of Dorisburg. Without the succour of the Mima, the erstwhile colonists seek distraction in sensual orgies, memories of their own and earlier lives, low comedy, religious cults, observations of strange astronomical phenomena, empty entertainments, science, routine tasks, brutal totalitarianism, and in all kinds of human endeavour, but ultimately cannot face the emptiness outside and inside. The poems are metrical and mostly rhymed, using both traditional and individual forms, several alluding to a wide range of Swedish and Nordic poetry, such as the Finnish Kalevala.
Adaptations
An opera by Karl-Birger Blomdahl also called Aniara premiered in 1959 with a libretto by Erik Lindegren based on Martinson's poem; it was staged in Stockholm, Hamburg, Brussels and Darmstadt, and later in Gothenburg and Malmö. Swedish musician Kleerup released an album based on Aniara in 2012. A melding of Aniara and Beethoven's opera Fidelio was staged by the Opéra de Lyon under the direction of American artist Gary Hill in 2013. The fourth album from the Swedish progressive metal band Seventh Wonder called The Great Escape is based on Aniara, the title track last 30:21 minutes and relates all the poem from beginning to end. Aniara, a Swedish TV film directed by Arne Arnbom, written by Erik Lindegren and Harry Martinson, and starring Margareta Hallin, Elisabeth Söderström, Erik Sædén and Arne Tyrén. The music was composed by Karl-Birger Blomdahl. Aniara, a 2018 Swedish feature film by directors Pella Kågerman and Hugo Lilja, starring Emelie Jonsson, premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival that year. A choral theatre work with The Crossing, Helsinki’s Klockriketeatern, and composer Robert Maggio was performed in 2019.
Translations
Aniara was translated into English as Aniara, A Review of Man in Time and Space by Hugh MacDiarmid and E. Harley Schubert in 1956. It was translated again into English by Stephen Klass and Leif Sjöberg for a 1999 edition. The book is not currently in print.
Reception
The well-known American science fiction writer, Theodore Sturgeon, in reviewing a 1964 American edition for a genre audience, stated that "Martinson's achievement here is an inexpressible, immeasurable sadness. ranscends panic and terror and even despair leaves you in the quiet immensities, with the feeling that you have spent time, and have been permanently tinted, by and with an impersonal larger-than-God force."
Legacy
In December 2019 the extrasolar planetHD 102956 b was named after a character aboard the spacecraft, the pilot Isagel, as part of the IAUNameExoWorlds project. The exoplanet's star was named Aniara.
