Table Of Content“Prowling The Meanings: Anne Carson’s Doubtful Forms”
and
“The Traitor’s Symphony”
A
thesis
submitted
to
the
University
of
Manchester
for
the
degree
of
Doctor
of
Philosophy
in
the
Faculty
of
Humanities
2014
Jennifer
R
Thorp
School
of
Arts,
Languages
and
Cultures
LIST
OF
CONTENTS
“Prowling
The
Meanings:
Anne
Carson’s
Doubtful
Forms”
ABSTRACT_______________________________________________________________4
DECLARATION
&
COPYRIGHT
STATEMENT
_______________________
5
INTRODUCTION.
Carson
And
The
Edge
_________________________________________________6
CHAPTER
1.
After
Elegy:
Destabilising
Form
In
Nox
Introduction
___________________________________________________________
26
Section
1:
The
Forms
Of
Death
_______________________________________
27
Section
2:
Language
And
Elegiac
Forming
__________________________
42
Section
3:
Translating
The
Elegist
___________________________________
55
CHAPTER
2.
The
Edge
That
Breaks
Off:
Form
And
The
Limits
Of
Language
In
Just
For
The
Thrill,
‘Cycladics’
and
Glass
Essay
Section
1:
Do
Words
Hold
Good?__________________________________________
65
Section
2:
Scepticism
And
The
Productivity
Of
Language____________
73
Section
3:
Silence
And
Demented
Language
__________________________
83
Section
4:
Formal
Monstrosity
And
The
Saving
Of
Language________
90
CONCLUSION
_________________________________________________________103
BIBLIOGRAPHY______________________________________________________105
“The
Traitor’s
Symphony”
SYNOPSIS _________________________________________________________ 115
BOOK 1
Preface: David___________________________________________ 116
2
Section 1: Wife And Husband ________________________________118
Section 2: The Composer___________________________________ 155
Section 3: All Voices ______________________________________ 193
BOOK 2 ______________________________________________________ 246
BOOK 3 ______________________________________________________385
CODA ________________________________________________________ 435
Word
count:
147,443
3
ABSTRACT
This
thesis
uses
four
works
by
the
contemporary
Canadian
poet
Anne
Carson
(born
1950)
to
argue
that
it
is
in
the
embracing
of
failure
and
difficulty
that
modern
poetics
may
negotiate
formal
erosion
and
the
limits
of
language.
The
introduction
addresses
Carson’s
divisive
reputation,
and
uses
two
sepa-‐
rate
criticisms
of
her
poetic
skill
to
delineate
her
liminal
position
in
the
modern
poetic
landscape,
and
therefore
demonstrate
her
potential
as
a
valuable
framework
for
dis-‐
cussing
innovative
form.
Via
an
examination
of
the
criticisms
of
Robert
Potts
and
Da-‐
vid
Solway,
I
argue
that
Carson
is
neither
high
priestess
of
postmodernism
nor
a
col-‐
lagist
of
poorly
produced
forms.
This
illuminates
two
points:
one,
that
she
occupies
a
space
outside
several
modern
ideologies
of
poetic
authenticity,
expression
and
form,
and
two,
that
this
position
can
be
effectively
used
to
interrogate
those
ideologies
and
investigate
new
possibilities
for
poetic
creativity.
In
Chapter
1,
Nox,
Carson’s
elegy
for
her
brother
Michael,
is
argued
to
exper-‐
iment
with
traditional
elegy
form
–
but
not
in
a
mode
that
wholly
follows
Jahan
Rama-‐
zani’s
famous
framing
of
20th
century
elegy
form
as
defiantly,
traumatically
fractured.
Nox
is
shown
not
to
be
merely
subversive,
but
also
interrogative
of
its
own
formal
tradition,
embracing
the
inherent
contradiction
within
elegy:
that
absence
could
be
rendered
as
presence,
that
a
living,
flawed
language
could
make
the
dead
speak.
From
this
contradiction,
I
argue,
Nox
creates
a
productive
solution:
it
occupies
a
position
of
formal
non-‐forming,
a
return
to
the
state
of
poesis,
refusing
to
emerge
as
a
completed
poem
or
retreat
into
fragmentation
but
instead
occupying
a
liminal
space
of
continual
creation.
In
the
second
chapter,
this
preoccupation
with
elegy’s
paradox
is
shown
to
be
part
of
a
greater
theme
within
Carson’s
work.
The
failures
of
language
in
Carson
are
elucidated
with
reference
to
the
sceptical
19th-‐century
theorist
Fritz
Mauthner.
Mauthner
is
argued
to
be
the
best
theorist
for
the
thesis’s
framework
because
of
his
belief
in
the
possibilities
of
language’s
resurrection
as
a
valid
communicative
medium.
Through
three
texts,
“By
Chance
The
Cycladic
People”,
The
Glass
Essay
and
Just
For
The
Thrill,
Carson’s
interrogation
of
this
hope
is
shown
to
produce
creativity
from
dif-‐
ficulty,
creating
monstrous
form-‐combinations
to
render
the
silence
beyond
lan-‐
guage’s
limits
as
poetically
productive.
Thus
Carson’s
texts,
in
their
struggle
with
failure
and
their
obsessive
doubt,
can
be
used
to
construct
several
means
of
negotiating
the
limits
of
form
and
the
in-‐
herent
fallibility
of
language.
The
conflict
between
the
drive
for
authentic
expression
and
the
perceived
failure
of
expressive
mediums
is
one
of
the
defining
features
of
both
Carson’s
work
and
modern
poetry
in
general.
However,
it
is
by
inhabiting
and
challenging
the
unstable,
fraught
areas
at
the
edge
of
meaning
that
poetry
of
the
21st
century
can,
in
the
words
of
Carson’s
great
influence
Samuel
Beckett,
try
again,
fail
again,
fail
better.
4
DECLARATION
AND
COPYRIGHT
STATEMENT
Declaration
No
portion
of
the
work
referred
to
in
this
thesis
has
been
submitted
in
support
of
an
application
for
another
degree
or
qualification
of
this
or
any
other
university
or
other
institute
of
learning.
Copyright
Statement
i. The
author
of
this
thesis
(including
any
appendices
and/or
schedules
to
this
has
given
The
University
of
Manchester
certain
rights
to
use
such
Copyright,
including
for
administrative
purposes.
ii. Copies
of
this
thesis,
either
in
full
or
in
extracts
and
whether
in
hard
or
electronic
copy,
may
be
made
only
in
accordance
with
the
Copyright,
Designs
and
Patents
Act
1988
(as
amended)
and
regulations
issued
under
it
or,
where
appropriate,
in
accord-‐
ance
with
licensing
agreements
which
the
University
has
from
time
to
time.
This
page
must
form
part
of
any
such
copies
made.
iii.The
ownership
of
certain
Copyright,
patents,
designs,
trade
marks
and
other
cop-‐
yright
works
in
the
thesis,
for
example
graphs
and
tables
by
the
author
and
may
be
owned
by
third
parties.
Such
Intellectual
Property
and
Reproductions
cannot
and
must
not
be
made
available
for
use
without
the
prior
written
permission
of
the
own-‐
er(s)
of
the
relevant
Intellectual
Property
and/or
Reproductions.
iv. Further
information
on
the
conditions
under
which
disclosure,
publication
and
commercialisation
of
this
thesis,
the
Copyright
and
any
Intellectual
Property
and/or
Reproductions
described
in
it
may
take
place
is
available
in
the
University
IP
Policy
(see
http://documents.manchester.ac.uk/DocuInfo.aspx?DocID=487),
in
any
relevant
Thesis
restriction
declarations
deposited
in
the
University
Library,
The
University
Li-‐
brary’s
regulations
(see
http://www.manchester.ac.uk/library/aboutus/regulations)
and
in
The
University’s
Policy
On
Presentation
of
Theses.
5
INTRODUCTION
Carson And The Edge
Anne
Carson
is
one
of
a
small
group
of
modern
poets
whose
name
produces
both
public
recognition
and
fervent
critical
argument.
She
emerged
as
a
figure
on
the
literary
scene
with
a
rich
stretch
of
productivity
in
the
1990s-‐2000s,
garnering
awards
and
praise
with
Autobiography
Of
Red,
The
Beauty
Of
The
Husband
and
other,
shorter
works.
Her
place
in
the
poetic
canon
is,
however,
contentious.
Her
fame
and
prizes,
among
them
a
Guggenheim
Fellowship
and
a
MacArthur
Genius
Grant,
have
accrued
in
parallel
with
accusations
that
she
violates
the
potential
of
her
classicist
roots,
and
utilises
deliberate
obscurantism
and
reliance
on
famous
names
to
bolster
her
own
credentials.
Her
catalogue
attracts
both
admiration
–
Michael
Ondaatje
has
labelled
her
‘the
most
exciting
poet
writing
in
English
today’1
–
and
‘charges
of
excess
and
of
misplaced
erudition’2,
which
have
been
developing
since
her
first
successes.
I
will
use
the
latter
to
establish
Carson
as
my
central
structure
for
an
examination
of
the
state
and
future
of
contemporary
poetics:
the
debate
surrounding
her
value,
stripped
of
its
extremes,
is
an
effective
tool
for
plumbing
those
schools
of
thought
sur-‐
rounding
the
‘survival’
of
poetry
and
Carson’s
peculiar
placement
within/outside
them.
It
is
possibly
the
volatile
presence
of
this
debate
that
has
restricted
the
pro-‐
duction
of
critical
perspectives
on
Carson’s
work.
Another
influence
may
be
the
fact
that
contemplating
her
oeuvre
as
a
coherent
whole
is,
as
shall
be
discussed
in
this
in-‐
troduction,
often
difficult.
A
survey
of
the
literature
reveals
that
studies
of
Carson
1
Ondaatje
quoted
in
Jason
Guriel,
“Autobiography
of
Reader:
Anne
Carson’s
Red
Doc>,”
Poetry
Maga-‐
zine
(March
1
2013),
accessed
March
2013,
http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/article/245432
2
Lee
Upton,
Defensive
Measures:
The
Poetry
Of
Neidecker,
Bishop,
Gluck,
and
Carson
(Lewisburg:
Buck-‐
nell
University
Press
2005),
31.
6
largely
focus
on
one
text,
as
if
each
exists
in
a
vacuum,
isolated
from
the
backlash
that
began
in
the
1990s
and
still
affects
her
position
and
potential
in
the
poetic
landscape.3
As
a
poet
of
the
moment,
producing
work
with
great
frequency
and
in
an
expanding
field
of
genres
and
forms
(in
June
2014,
for
instance,
she
published
The
Albertine
Workout,
a
pairing
of
new
poetry
with
the
art
of
Kim
Anno,
and
Nay
Rather,
a
republi-‐
cation
of
a
2008
essay
with
accompanying
Greek
translations
and
illustrations),
criti-‐
cism
on
Carson
must
also
necessarily
be
nimble
on
its
feet.
This
thesis
aims
to
utilise
Carson
as
the
framing
device
for
examining
the
limits
of
contemporary
poetics,
argu-‐
ing
that
it
is
at
the
fraying
edges
of
form
that
interesting
solutions
are
being
posed
to
some
of
modern
poetry’s
most
pressing
difficulties.
Against
a
context
of
postmodern
distrust
of
narrative,
language
and
sign,
modernist
dissolution
of
self,
and
experi-‐
mental
poetry’s
interrogation
of
its
own
viability,4
Carson’s
form
and
genre
transfor-‐
mations
provide
an
effective
basis
for
examining
poetic
modes
of
survival.
Carson’s
work,
in
this
thesis,
will
be
utilised
as
a
means
of
demonstrating
the
possibilities
of
doubt
and
failure
as
tools
for
poetry’s
continued
vitality.
However,
the
use
of
such
a
controversial
poet
requires
explanation,
and
it
is
in
the
issues
targeted
by
her
detrac-‐
3
See,
for
example,
Paula
Melton,
“Essays
at
Anne
Carson’s
“Glass,
Irony
And
God”,”
The
Iowa
Review
27.1
(Spring
1997),
accessed
February
2012,
http://www.jstor.org/stable/20154409;
Mark
Halliday,
“Carson:
Mind
and
Heart,”
Chicago
Review
45.2
(1999),
accessed
June
2012,
doi:
10.2307/25304388;
Ian
Rae,
“Verglas:
Narrative
Technique
In
Anne
Carson’s
The
Glass
Essay,”
English
Studies
In
Canada
37.3-‐4,
accessed
February
2014,
http://ejournals.library.ualberta.ca/index.php/ESC/article/view/20089..
One
of
the
only
recent
exam-‐
ples
of
non-‐single-‐text
criticism
is
Rae’s
“Runaway
Classicists:
Anne
Carson
and
Alice
Munro’s
Juliet,”
Journal
Of
The
Short
Story
In
English
55
(Autumn
2010),
accessed
April
2014,
http://jsse.revues.org/1117,
which
argues
that
Carson
is
the
basis
for
a
character
in
Munro’s
‘Juliet’.
4
This
interrogation
is
not,
obviously,
solely
confined
to
those
poets
defined
as
‘experimental’
–
that
definition
being
malleable,
for
one.
However,
as
will
be
discussed
at
a
later
point,
it
is
the
interrogative
impulse
that
can
be
seen
to
characterise
some
modern
experimental
poetics,
as
specifically
defined
by
Joan
Retallack.
7
tors
–
and
their
reflection
on
her
place
in
20th
and
21st
century
poetics
–
that
I
identify
her
value
as
the
crux
of
a
theory
of
innovative
form.5
This
introduction,
then,
will
first
propose
as
a
foundation
a
definition
of
Car-‐
son’s
characteristics
as
a
poet,
and
then
identify
the
elements
of
her
work
that
have
created
such
contention.
These
elements
will
provide
the
access
point
to
a
discussion
of
Carson’s
relationship
with
the
poetic
modes
and
trends
of
the
modernist
and
post-‐
modern,
and
find
in
her
polyvalent
and
ambiguous
stance
the
essence
of
her
value
as
a
bellwether
for
contemporary
poetics.
Carson’s
poetry
of
experiment,
as
expressed
through
probing
work
that
ceaselessly
interrogates
its
own
worth,
will
be
established
as
an
effective
means
through
which
I
may
investigate
limits
as
a
productive
space.
To
respond
to
the
critical
arguments
against
Carson’s
value
as
poet,
then,
it
is
necessary
to
summarise
the
dominant
features
of
her
output,
particularly
the
early
works
that
attracted
such
high-‐profile
criticism.
Carson’s
works,
while
varied
in
sub-‐
ject
matter,
generally
incorporate
reflections
on
the
limited
nature
of
genre,
existing
in
liminal
spaces
between
categories
and
adopting
different
forms.
Her
early
pieces
are
often
personal
and
narrative-‐based,
and
heavily
woven
with
various
cultural
ref-‐
erents,
on
which
she
riffs
in
complex,
often
obscure
patterns.
Classical
influences
are
dominant
–
Carson’s
artistic
reputation
grew
organically
from
her
poetic
Greek
schol-‐
arship
as
Professor
of
Classics,
and
much
of
her
work
uses
classical
ideas
and
dramas
as
navigational
tools.
Her
preferred
mode
of
syntax
is
counter-‐intuitively
flattened,
an
unadorned
mode
of
phrasing
that
is
pared
and
solid.
Carson’s
primary
structure
is
the
sentence:
‘in
Carson
a
single
sentence
can
transcend
the
whole
operation,’
in
the
5
It
is
not
the
aim
of
this
thesis
to
posit
a
‘crisis’
in
poetry
that
requires
solutions
to
avoid
extinction.
Rather,
I
hope
to
argue
that
in
some
of
Carson’s
work
with
form
and
the
limits
of
language,
models
emerge
that
provide
interesting
negotiations
with
specific
challenges.
8
phrase
of
Blake
Butler.6
What
could
be
read
as
a
formal
maze
of
cultural
anecdotes,
oblique
pronouncements
and
emotional
distress
is,
in
the
coolness
of
a
Carson
sen-‐
tence,
distilled
into
more
controlled,
fragile
work.
However,
this
work
is
met
with
resistance
and
deprecation
by
several
camps
of
critics.
One,
vocally
led
by
David
Solway,
focuses
on
her
utilisation
of
academic
and
mythic
reference
and
detached
syntax
as
demonstrations
of
a
cynical
refusal
of
actual
intellectual
and
poetic
engagement
in
favour
of
mere
showmanship.
Another,
prom-‐
ulgated
by
Robert
Potts
in
his
argument
against
her
T.S.
Eliot
Prize
win
for
The
Beauty
Of
The
Husband
in
2001,
decries
her
experiments
with
form
and
ambivalent
attitude
to
poetic
tradition
as
actually
concealing
a
‘crashing
inability’7
to
produce
more
con-‐
ventional
poetry.
These
two
criticisms,
while
both
focussed
on
proving
that
the
em-‐
peror
has
no
clothes,
emerge
from
different
traditions
and
ideas
about
the
‘ideal’
po-‐
etry,
and
utilise
Carson
as
part
of
their
own
discourses
on
how
to
preserve
or
defend
those
ideals.
In
examining
and
assessing
them,
Carson’s
position
in
the
modern
poetic
landscape,
and
her
usefulness
as
a
focal
point
for
discussions
of
form
and
language,
will
become
more
evident.8
6
Blake
Butler,
“Anne
Carson
Vs.
George
Saunders,”
VICE
Magazine,
January
23,
2013,
accessed
April
2013,
http://www.vice.com/en_uk/read/anne-‐carson-‐vs-‐george-‐saunders
7
Robert
Potts,
“Neither
Rhyme
Nor
Reason,”
The
Guardian,
Sunday
26
January,
2002,
accessed
April
2011,
http://www.theguardian.com/books/2002/jan/26/poetry.tseliotprizeforpoetry.
8
For
criticisms
of
Carson
as
charlatan,
see
also
Stephen
Burt,
“Professor
or
Pinhead,”
London
Review
Of
Books
33.14
(July
2011),
accessed
August
2011,
http://www.lrb.co.uk/v33/n14/stephen-‐
burt/professor-‐or-‐pinhead;
Geraldine
McKenzie,
“Autobiography
Of
Red,”,
Jacket
Magazine
11,
ac-‐
cessed
April
2012,
http://jacketmagazine.com/11/mckenzie-‐on-‐carson.html;
Emma
Brockes,
“Anne
Carson:
A
Life
In
Writing,”
The
Guardian,
30
December,
2006,
accessed
February
2014,
http://www.theguardian.com/books/2006/dec/30/featuresreviews.guardianreview7;
George
Steiner,
“Anne
Carson
‘Translates’
Antigone,”
The
Times
Literary
Supplement,
1
August,
2012,
accessed
October
2012,
http://www.the-‐tls.co.uk/tls/public/article1093904.ece;
Harvey
Shepard,
“Neither
Beauty
Nor
Truth:
The
Beauty
Of
The
Husband,”
Web
De
Sol
Review
Of
Books,
accessed
April
2012,
http://wdsreviewofbooks.webdelsol.com/WDSRBCarson.htm;
Cyril
Wong,
“The
Acid
Tongue,”
Quarter-‐
ly
Literary
Review
Singapore
1.3
(2002),
accessed
April
2014,
http://www.qlrs.com/issues/apr2002/acidtongue/carson.html.
9
For
Solway,
Carson
is
a
figure
of
allusive
superficiality,
‘dabbling…
in
poetry
and
scholarship
without
having
to
know
much
about
either’9.
Carson’s
‘charlatan-‐
ism’,10
in
this
context,
is
supposedly
founded
on
a
deceptive
veneer
of
academic
intim-‐
idation
and
genre
sleight-‐of-‐hand
that
conceals
a
fatal
lack
of
depth.
Carson,
for
Sol-‐
way,
becomes
a
cultish
figure
adored
by
readers
and
critics
bewitched
by
her
cynical
performance
of
profundity.
The
Critical
Survey
Of
Poetry’s
summary
of
this
side
of
the
argument
in
Carson’s
biography,
stripped
of
invective,
is
that
‘she
hides
behind
myth
and
allusion
or
uses
them
to
isolate
herself’11.
Solway’s
charges
make
more
sense
when
expanded
beyond
Carson
herself
to
the
wider
debate,
in
which
he
is
participat-‐
ing,
about
the
place
and
state
of
poetry
in
the
20th
and
21st
century,
as
first
modernism
and
then
postmodernism
rewrote
and
deconstructed
ideas
of
poetic
worth,
value
and
purpose.
Solway’s
position
is
as
self-‐defined
defender
of
a
code
of
‘genuine’
value
in
poetry,
and
specifically
the
lyric,
of
poetry
that
cultivates
the
purity
of
connection
be-‐
tween
person,
language
and
the
real.
In
explicit
opposition
to
this,
in
Solway’s
con-‐
ception,
is
Carson,
whose
‘conversations’
(to
use
the
term
loosely)
with
cultural
fig-‐
ures,
paratactic
statements
and
exploratory
assemblies
of
form
are
representative
of
the
threatening
force
of
postmodernism
and
the
allusive,
bizarre
and
apparently
depthless
poetic
‘play’
that
has
developed
from
Lyotard’s
‘incredulity
towards
meta-‐
narratives’12
to
question
and
subvert
existing
poetic
conventions
and
structures.
There
are
many
difficulties
with
Solway’s
approach,
not
least
because
of
postmodernism
itself,
which
by
its
nature
strongly
resists
having
one
avatar
or
sym-‐
bolic
exemplar
of
its
approaches.
Carson
is
similarly
difficult
to
locate
solely
within
9
David
Solway,
“The
Trouble
With
Annie:
David
Solway
Unmakes
Anne
Carson,”
Books
In
Canada
(July
2001),
accessed
January
2014,
http://www.booksincanada.com/article_view.asp?id=3159.
10
Solway,
“The
Trouble
With
Annie”.
11
Thomas
Willard,
“Anne
Carson,”
in
Critical
Survey
of
Poetry,
4th
ed,
ed.
Rosemary
M.
Canfield
Reisman
(Charleston:
Salem
Press
2011),
226.
12
Jean-‐Francois
Lyotard,
The
Postmodern
Condition:
A
Report
On
Knowledge,
trans.
George
Bennington
and
Brian
Massumi
(Minneapolis:
University
Of
Minneapolis
Press,
1993),
xxiv.
10
Description:In Chapter 1, Nox, Carson's elegy for her brother Michael, is argued to exper-‐ .. phasis on radical experimentation with literary form, blurred gender
