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.
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Produktdetaljer
ISBN
9781400823154
Publisert
2013
Utgiver
Vendor
Princeton University Press
Språk
Product language
Engelsk
Format
Product format
Digital bok
Forfatter