Anne Carson’s Autobiography of Red (1998) is a text that traverses the boundaries between postmodernism and mythology. As such, it investigates and builds further upon its own mythological...Show moreAnne Carson’s Autobiography of Red (1998) is a text that traverses the boundaries between postmodernism and mythology. As such, it investigates and builds further upon its own mythological foundations, rooted in the poem Geryoneis by the ancient Greek poet Stesichoros. The aim of this study is to explore, through a close reading of Carson’s text, how we can move from thinking about mythology solely in terms of representation towards thinking of mythology in terms of simulation. This argument will be made by taking a semiotic approach. This approach not only makes a diachronic study of mythological language possible, but also makes it possible for us to think about how signs traverse (spatially) between different sign systems. The study starts by using René Girard’s approach of reading myths as texts of persecution in order to uncover Autobiography of Red’s underlying ideological codes. Linda Hutcheon’s theories concerning historiographic metafiction and parody are then used in order to explore how Carson, in using syllogistics, investigates the origins of the supposed blinding of Stesichoros by Helen of Troy. The study then moves on to a diachronic study of the sign systems in the text using Roland Barthes’ theory concerning myth as well as his metalingual system. The final chapter of this study starts out by conceptualizing a notion of textual space, following Barthes’ distinction between ‘work’ and ‘Text’ and Gilles Deleuze’s and Felix Guattari’s philosophy of smooth and striated space. After having conceptualized textual space, a diagrammatic and simulative function of mythology is theorized.Show less
This thesis reads a section of Keston Sutherland's latest poetic work, The Odes to TL61P, through the realist aesthetics of Lukacs; it focuses specifally on the concept and employment of mimesis in...Show moreThis thesis reads a section of Keston Sutherland's latest poetic work, The Odes to TL61P, through the realist aesthetics of Lukacs; it focuses specifally on the concept and employment of mimesis in these two authors.Show less
In this thesis I sketch out a poetics of the love letter. With this poetics I propose that the structure of the love letter generates an uncanny form of textual presence of the lover in the text....Show moreIn this thesis I sketch out a poetics of the love letter. With this poetics I propose that the structure of the love letter generates an uncanny form of textual presence of the lover in the text. The lover’s presence is suggested by an interplay of three basic modes of address: the narratological mode of address (Bal, M.); the apostrophic mode of address (Culler J. et al.); the dialogic mode of address (Bakhtin, M. M.). This poetics of the love letter is mainly based on the close reading of the love letters of M. Tsvetajeva to A. Bachrach (1923) and the epistles of A. Chekhov and O. Knipper (1899 - 1904).Show less
