What kind of writer is Anne Carson?
Anne Carson’s work spans poetry, prose and essays, often engaging with themes, texts, and myths from the ancient Greek world. Alongside her career as a writer, she is a professor of classics and widely known for her lectures on ancient Greek literature.
Born in Toronto, Canada, in 1950, Carson published her doctoral thesis in Classics, 'Odi et Amo Ergo Sum' ('I Hate and I Love, Therefore I Am'), in 1981. She later reworked it into the essay 'Eros the Bittersweet', in which she developed many of the ideas about desire that would shape her later writing.
For many readers, 'Autobiography of Red: A Novel in Verse' (1998) serves as an introduction to Carson’s work. Inspired by Geryoneis – the fragmentary poem by the ancient Greek poet Stesichorus – it reimagines Geryon, the red-winged monster slain by Heracles, as a gay teenager with wings who falls in love with Heracles and is left heartbroken.
Throughout her entire authorship, Carson has continually experimented with literary form and explored the possibilities of writing. An example of this is 'Float' (2016), twenty-two chapbooks on different subjects that can be read in any order. More recently, 'Wrong Norma' from 2024, consists of a diverse combination of texts with a strongly performative aspect in which Carson crosses over into various artistic and academic fields.
🔴💥#Grèce
Des manifestations massives éclatent en Grèce alors que le mouvement syndical organisé descend dans la rue pour protester contre l'inflation, les prix élevés des carburants et la baisse du pouvoir d'achat.
Beyond #Santorini's famous blue domes and spectacular caldera, the island reveals another side of its beauty: traditional Cycladic architecture, whitewashed courtyards, colorful wooden doors, and bougainvillea flourishing under the Aegean sun. 🇬🇷
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Au milieu du IVe siècle avant J.-C., les Hellènes d’Italie étaient attaquées depuis des décennies par des peuples italiques. Désespérés, les Tarentins se tournèrent vers le roi d'Épire, Alexandre le Molosse, frère cadet d’Olympias et oncle d’Alexandre. Après une brillante campagne qui repoussa les Samnites et les Lucaniens dans leurs montagnes, le roi molosse annexa éphémèrement ses protégés au royaume Épirote, avant d’être tué à la bataille de Pandosia. Entre temps, la cité de Tarente frappa ces magnifiques statères d’or en son nom.
334-331 av. J.-C. Tarente molosse.
#WyrdWednesday
In the tale of Peredur, the Mabinogion's version of the Perceval myth, there is an interesting episode that is quite particular to this Welsh telling of the story.
When Peredur arrives at the Hall of the Sons of the King of Suffering, he finds only women present. Shortly, a grim sight arrives at the doors of the hall, a dark steed, its rider a corpse.
The ladies of the house bring down the body from its mount, washing it, and applying some mysterious ointment. When the women are done, the body opens its eyes and stands, alive once more. Peredur watches in amazement as two more such steeds arrive, each carrying dead riders on their backs.
Again, the women treat the bodies in the same way, after which they rise back to life.
Although themes of death and rejuvenation are central to the Perceval narrative, this particular scene doesn't seem to have direct analogues in other versions. It may perhaps be drawing from, or preserving, a more specifically Welsh mythological pattern, and is quite suggestive of the Pair Dadeni, the Cauldron of Rebirth. One can imagine the women of the hall placing their dead in just such a vessel to be cleansed among its mysterious and enchanted ingredients, before rising back to life once more!