COML0784 - Anne Carson and the Unclassifiable Text

A eulogy shaped like an accordion. An ancient Greek fragment transformed into a queer romance. A performance piece merging Marilyn Monroe with Helen of Troy. Tiny essays about the Brontë sisters and the Book of Isaiah. An analysis of Proust in the form of a list. In this intensive Critical-Creative Seminar, we will investigate the genre of hybrid text through perhaps its most renowned practitioner, Anne Carson—classicist, poet, translator, playwright, essayist, critic, and performance artist. Readings will include Nox, a multimedia reflection on the death of Carson’s brother, If Not, Winter, an unhinged translation of Sappho, and Men in Off Hours, a multi-genre collection about Emily Dickinson, Freud, Virginia Woolf, and others. We will also study some of Carson’s muses, such as Sappho, Catullus, Aeschylus, Dickinson, and Proust. Short creative and critical assignments will deepen our understanding of the central texts, culminating in a final project that may be an essay, prose poems, or performance piece—your choice. Students from all disciplines are welcome.