"...where everything becomes border" : Tomas Tranströmer and the paradox of spaces

The article addresses the issue of spatiality in Tomas Tranströmer’s poetry. The border, one of the key notions present in Tranströmer’s imagery, produces a paradox reflecting the mystic unity of the universe: it creates spaces that are both closed and open or limited and expanding at the same time. The problem is approached with the use of a distinction between a place and a space, the former being an enclosed, domesticated and secure area for the lyrical subject, the latter being open, abstract and involving transcendence. The analyses indicate that a place in Tranströmer’s poems is often used as a point of departure for further transformation, by way of metaphor, into a dynamic space without limits, which can be interpreted in terms of mental, existential or mythical reality. The paradoxical nature of spaces in Tranströmer’s poems can be best illustrated by the Möbius strip – an object in space, yet with only one side and one edge.