I read this review of Anne Carson's Red Doc and, lo, it was mythic... But, alas, a sequel. So I requested the first book, Autobiography of Red from the library. Now, it's not for everyone and there are some implications within it which I must state are not classroom-appropriate, but I have been very pleased so far.
One thing, in particular, that has struck me is how Carson introduces the book; she spends some pages talking about her source material, Stesichoros, a Greco-Sicilian poet born c. 650. What interested me most was how he revolutionized the use of adjectives:
What is an adjective? Nouns name the world. Verbs activate the names. Adjectives come from somewhere else. The word adjective (epitheton in Greek) is itself an adjective meaning "placed on top," "added," "appended," "imported," "foreign." Adjectives seem fairly innocent additions but look again. These small imported mechanisms are in charge of attaching everything in the world to its place in particularity...
In the world of Homeric epic, for example, being is stable and particularity is set fast in tradition. When Homor mentions blood, blood is black. When women appear, women are neat-ankled or glancing. Poseidon always has the blue eyebrows of Poseidon. Gods' laughter is unquenchable. Human knees are quick. The sea unwearying. Death is bad. Cowards livers are white. Homer's epithets are fixed diction with which Homer fastens every substance in the world to its aptest attribute and holds them in place for epic consumption...
So into the still surface of this code Stesichoros was born... Stesichoros released being. All the substances in the world went floating up. Suddenly there was nothing to interfere with horses being hollow hooved. Or a river being root silver. Or a child being bruiseless. Or hell as deep as the sin is high. Or Herakles ordeal strong. Or a planet middle night stuck. Or an insomniac outside the joy. Or killings cream black.
Total. Language. Love. Overload. :)
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