Economy of the Unlost

Economy of the Unlost
Author :
Publisher : Princeton University Press
Total Pages : 156
Release :
ISBN-10 : 9781400823154
ISBN-13 : 1400823153
Rating : 4/5 (153 Downloads)

Book Synopsis Economy of the Unlost by : Anne Carson

Download or read book Economy of the Unlost written by Anne Carson and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2009-04-11 with total page 156 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The ancient Greek lyric poet Simonides of Keos was the first poet in the Western tradition to take money for poetic composition. From this starting point, Anne Carson launches an exploration, poetic in its own right, of the idea of poetic economy. She offers a reading of certain of Simonides' texts and aligns these with writings of the modern Romanian poet Paul Celan, a Jew and survivor of the Holocaust, whose "economies" of language are notorious. Asking such questions as, What is lost when words are wasted? and Who profits when words are saved? Carson reveals the two poets' striking commonalities. In Carson's view Simonides and Celan share a similar mentality or disposition toward the world, language and the work of the poet. Economy of the Unlost begins by showing how each of the two poets stands in a state of alienation between two worlds. In Simonides' case, the gift economy of fifth-century b.c. Greece was giving way to one based on money and commodities, while Celan's life spanned pre- and post-Holocaust worlds, and he himself, writing in German, became estranged from his native language. Carson goes on to consider various aspects of the two poets' techniques for coming to grips with the invisible through the visible world. A focus on the genre of the epitaph grants insights into the kinds of exchange the poets envision between the living and the dead. Assessing the impact on Simonidean composition of the material fact of inscription on stone, Carson suggests that a need for brevity influenced the exactitude and clarity of Simonides' style, and proposes a comparison with Celan's interest in the "negative design" of printmaking: both poets, though in different ways, employ a kind of negative image making, cutting away all that is superfluous. This book's juxtaposition of the two poets illuminates their differences--Simonides' fundamental faith in the power of the word, Celan's ultimate despair--as well as their similarities; it provides fertile ground for the virtuosic interplay of Carson's scholarship and her poetic sensibility.


Economy of the Unlost Related Books

Economy of the Unlost
Language: en
Pages: 156
Authors: Anne Carson
Categories: Literary Criticism
Type: BOOK - Published: 2009-04-11 - Publisher: Princeton University Press

GET EBOOK

The ancient Greek lyric poet Simonides of Keos was the first poet in the Western tradition to take money for poetic composition. From this starting point, Anne
Economy of the Unlost
Language: en
Pages: 160
Authors: Anne Carson
Categories: Literary Criticism
Type: BOOK - Published: 2002-03-17 - Publisher: Princeton University Press

GET EBOOK

The ancient Greek lyric poet Simonides of Keos was the first poet in the Western tradition to take money for poetic composition. From this starting point, Anne
Economy of the Unlost
Language: en
Pages: 168
Authors: Anne Carson
Categories: Aesthetics
Type: BOOK - Published: 1999 - Publisher: Princeton, N.J. : Princeton University Press

GET EBOOK

Asking such questions as, What is lost when words are wasted? and Who profits when words are saved, Carson reveals the two poets' striking commonalities."--BOOK
Autobiography of Red
Language: en
Pages: 160
Authors: Anne Carson
Categories: Poetry
Type: BOOK - Published: 2013-03-05 - Publisher: Vintage

GET EBOOK

The award-winning poet reinvents a genre in a stunning work that is both a novel and a poem, both an unconventional re-creation of an ancient Greek myth and a w
Men in the Off Hours
Language: en
Pages: 176
Authors: Anne Carson
Categories: Poetry
Type: BOOK - Published: 2009-05-20 - Publisher: Vintage

GET EBOOK

Following her widely acclaimed Autobiography of Red ("A spellbinding achievement" --Susan Sontag), a new collection of poetry and prose that displays Anne Carso