Välsignad förbannelse : En retorisk analys av bibliskt material i Black Metallyrik

This bachelor thesis offers a rhetorical analysis of the album Maranatha by Swedish Black Metal artist Funeral Mist. Its main focus is on the intertextuality between the song "Blessed Curse" and the biblical book Deuteronomy, especially Deut 28 from which it has sampled a large portion of text. In the analysis I uncover the similarities and differences between the two texts in order to explain how the biblical fragments constitute new meanings when rearranged and taken out of their original context. The analysis concludes with relating the material to its new context i.e. the album Maranatha and the Black Metal scene by explaining other intertexts and references to the Bible and discussing which genre is best suited to describe the album as a whole. The results of the study show that the biblical quotations in the lyrics convey radically different messages and meanings compared to their original content in Deut 28. This in turn acknowledge how dependent linguistic symbols are on their context. I finish off my thesis with a few reflections on the moral and ethical implications of this use of biblical material concerning the anti-christian agenda supported by members of the Black Metal scene and specifically how Daniel Rostén of Funeral Mist view his own work and agenda