Creative Manipulations of Outlaw Narrative in Aleksis Kivi’s "Seitsemän veljestä"

Abstract

IN A MILIEU ABUNDANT with performances and literature about outlaws as well as real-life robbers near Kavi's home town (including Kivi's own great uncle), it is not surprising to find these motifs in Kivi's work. (1) Writers of novels, most notably Christian August Vulpius with his novel Rinaldo Rinaldini (1799), and Friedrich Schiller with his drama Die Rauber (1781; The Robbers), exerted a great influence in Finland as they did in the rest of Europe (Tarkiainen, Aleksis Kivija rosvoromantiikka 249-52). Both Viljo Tarkiainen as early as 1910 and Pirjo Lyytikainen in her book Vimman villitytpojat (2004)--in which she analyzes Kivi's Seitseman veljesta (1870; Seven Brothers) as a novel of transgression--assert connections between Kivi's novel and German romanticism, Schiller, Vulpius, and other romantic works such as Sir Walter Scott's Roh Roy (1817). (2) Implicitly challenging Aarne Kinnunen's claim that such comparisons are strained and foreign (Mikaan ei tunnu vieraammalta [164]), Lyytikainen, like Tarkiainen, illustrates the links to romanticism not only in Seitseman veljesta but also in other of Kivi's works centered on the theme of transgression. (3) My perspective on the novel aligns closely with Lyytikainen's in viewing transgression as thematically central to the novel and more specifically with Tarkiainen's suggestion that the theme could be at the core of the conception of the but here I advance the idea of viewing the novel in the context of so-called romanticism a step further by examining in more detail the specific elements (many of which Lyytikainen mentions) of what I have called outlaw narrative. (4) Even if we accept Kinnunen's statement that missaan kohden romaania ei voi havaita samastumista rosvoihin (164) [at no point in the novel can you find any identification with robbers], the emphasis here is not that the seven brothers resemble actual robbers or even the literary robbers of romanticism but that Kivi's in its exploration of transgression, utilizes the raw material of romantic-era narratives. Without venturing as far as Tarkiainen in suggesting that Kivi may have actually begun Seitseman veljesta with the intent of creating a Finnish we can perceive Kivi's employment of outlaw elements and motifs familiar to him and circulating in his lifetime (Lyytikainen 96). (5) Scholarship on Seitseman veljesta has often touched upon the generic attributes of the novel: whether or not it is a novel (Kinnunen 164-5), how it represents the quintessential romantic novel with its generic diversity, (6) and whether it is more like epic (Kinnunen 166), a drama, a comic epic (Lyytikainen 224), or a Bildungs- or Entwicklungsroman. (7) Jyrki Nummi even traces structural affinities to Platonic dialogue. (8) My purpose is not to circumscribe the novel with a generic definition, but to illustrate how the novel flirts with and creatively manipulates the themes and structure of outlaw narrative, a generic concept focused on crime (or transgression) while encompassing several structural and thematic elements. Not necessarily synonymous with robber novel, an outlaw narrative represents a grouping of works similar in ways that resemble how members of a family are similar. Using this loose concept of genre with blurred edges rather than a classification that adheres strictly to generic parameters (Fowler 41), we can still generalize in delineating three main thrusts of an outlaw narrative: first, thematization of criminality at some level; second, a focus on an outlaw character who either commits a crime or is accused of committing a crime; and third, the employment of traditional outlaw motifs and the exhibition of certain structural elements (Schaad 52). The thematization of criminality is well established by Lyytikainen in her discussion of transgression as a central theme in the but it is worth identifying a few specific themes of law and crime important for understanding the novel's attempt to grapple with the idea of what it means to be a society. …