The Photographic Diary Of Geryon:The Space Poetics In Autobiography Of Red

Anne Carson is widely acclaimed as one of the most classically trained poets in the world of literature today.As a contemporary exponent of the classical spirit,she excels in reinterpreting the classics in a contemporary and innovative form.Autobiography of Red is a novel in verse and one of the most important masterpieces of Anne Carson.In a fragmented but coherent narrative,Anne Carson reconstructs the story of Hercules,the Greek god,who hunts the monster Geryon.Focused on the novel in verse,this paper is to interpret its spatial nature through the theory of space poetics.The main framework of the thesis consists of three parts,including the spatial turn in poetry of Anne Carson,the construction of the space of visual imagination and the construction of image space in Autobiography of Red.The first part is the analysis of the spatial turn in poetry of Anne Carson,primarily analyzed from two fronts,including the reason of her spatial turn and the specific performance in her poetry.Firstly,the spatial turn in poetry of Anne Carson is the consequence of her struggle with the reality.Anne Carson is immersed in the classics on account of the lack of passion of modern people,whereas she is doomed to confront the psychological infertility of modern people.Hence,Carson becomes a contemporary interpreter of the classics,and her poetic creation has the characteristics both of the classical civilization and modern experience.Carson is excellent in reinterpreting the classics in a innovative way,through which the spatial art of poetry is capable of manifesting itself.This paper finds that Carson’s innovation of poetry,namely the spatial turn of poetry,stems from her innovation of the poetic form,that is,the photographic narrative.The innovation of Anne Carson manifests itself within her reflection on poetic language.From the perspective of Anne Carson,sometimes language can be bewildering and it is incapable of presenting the facts.According to this consideration,Carson portrayed Geryon as a photographer and the character narrates his life in a photographic way.The second part of this paper is the interpretation of the space of visual imagination.The construction of this space is based on the photographic world and Geryon’s contemplation of the world as a rover.This paper argues that within the photographic world of Geryon,he observes the reality through the lens and the photography taken by him is not only the grasp of some moments,but also the incarnation of his self-consciousness.At the moment Geryon clicks the shutter,he is surrounded by the present emotion,and the scene containing the past memories and emotion besieges him as well.At that moment,time in different space converges and the constant overlapping of images forms the spatialization of time.Moreover,the spatialization of time is reflected in some certain moment as well.Carson prefers to concentrate on some moment of enlightenment.Geryon always has the impulse to fall into sleep and dreams so as to escape from the reality,thus,he is usually in the rift between dreams and the reality.The boundary between dreams and the reality is active as it has leaks and the leak is actually what Carson shows preference to.This kind of moment,recorded by Geryon’ s photograph,occurs when Geryon is awake from his dreams.The adult Geryon is always characterized as a rover.Geryon enables his self-consciousness wandering the photographic world and the process is accompanied with the flow of time.The past memories and the contemporary experience is combined with each other at present.The original order of time is broken and rearranged,thus the displacement of space and the erratic identity appears.The third part of the paper is to interpret the construction of image space in Autobiography of Red.According to the illustration,the paper finds that the application of the image in Autobiography of Red is also spatial.First of all,the image is metaphorical and this kind of characteristic enable the existence of image space.Additionally,the spatiality of image primarily manifests itself in three fronts,including the organization of image space,the malleability of image space,and the constructivity of image space.And in Autobiography of Red,these features are rooted in the self-consciousness and visual imagination of Geryon connoted in the photograph and the spatialization of time.The consciousness of Geryon permeates each other,thus,time and space is in constant changes.The extension of Geryon’s self-consciousness and his visual imagination enables images to travel in different time and space.In the novel in verse,language is replaced by photograph by Geryon to finish his autobiography.Hence,the narrative poem,working like collage,is filled with cinematic plot.The photographic world is actually the inner world of Geryon.Within this world,the subjective consciousness operates like a projector.Driven by Geryon’s consciousness and his visual imagination,the static images in different spaces are constantly presented on the screen of consciousness,moving forward orderly and disorderly now and then.Ultimately,the spatialization of time is achieved.