Material Loss: Multimodality and Mourning in B.S. Johnson’s The Unfortunates and Anne Carson’s Nox
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RIS BIB ENDNOTEMaterial Loss: Multimodality and Mourning in B.S. Johnson’s The Unfortunates and Anne Carson’s Nox
Publication date: 2023
Studia Litteraria Universitatis Iagellonicae Cracoviensis, 2023, Volume 18, Issue 2, pp. 129 - 143
https://doi.org/10.4467/20843933ST.23.014.18184Authors
Material Loss: Multimodality and Mourning in B.S. Johnson’s The Unfortunates and Anne Carson’s Nox
B.S. Johnson’s The Unfortunates (1969) and Anne Carson’s Nox (2010) are among the most formally inventive and materially unique literary responses to personal loss. The first novel-in-a-box in English literature, The Unfortunates is a poignant account of the premature death of Johnson’s best friend Tony Tillinghast. Also contained in a box, Carson’s elegy is printed on a 25-metre-long concertinaed scroll, which contains a collage of textual and visual fragments of various artefacts connected with Carson’s dead brother.
This article considers the implications of certain visual and tactile properties of both works for their representation of loss and the work of mourning, as theorized by Sigmund Freud and Jacques Derrida. It argues that both the card-shuffle structure and the scroll format accentuate the ongoingness of mourning and convey scepticism about the possibility of any closure. The article also examines the significance of encasing the contents of both elegies in coffin-like boxes and the importance of their extensive use of fragmentation.
Abstrakt: Nieszczęśni (1969) B.S. Johnsona i Nox (2010) Anne Carson należą do najbardziej oryginalnych pod względem formalnym literackich reakcji na doświadczenie straty. Nieszczęśni to pierwsza anglojęzyczna powieść w pudełku w literaturze angielskiej, a zarazem relacja z przedwczesnej śmierci najlepszego przyjaciela pisarza, Tony’ego Tillinghasta. Elegia Carson również zamknięta jest w pudełku, w którym znajduje się 25-metrowy harmonijkowy zwój zawierający liczne elementy tekstowe i wizualne, w tym artefakty związane ze zmarłym bratem Carson.
Autor artykułu analizuje implikacje konkretnych wizualnych i dotykowych właściwości obu dzieł dla ich reprezentacji straty i żałoby na podstawie teorii Zygmunta Freuda i Jacques’a Derridy. Stawia tezę, że zarówno struktura talii kart (card shuffle), jak i format zwoju podkreślają ciągłość żałoby i wyrażają sceptycyzm w odniesieniu do możliwości jej zakończenia. W artykule przeanalizowano również symboliczne znaczenie przypominających trumny pudełek oraz wykorzystanie poetyki fragmentaryczności.
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Information: Studia Litteraria Universitatis Iagellonicae Cracoviensis, 2023, Volume 18, Issue 2, pp. 129 - 143
Article type: Original article
Titles:
Material Loss: Multimodality and Mourning in B.S. Johnson’s The Unfortunates and Anne Carson’s Nox
Material Loss: Multimodality and Mourning in B.S. Johnson’s The Unfortunates and Anne Carson’s Nox
University of Wrocław, plac Uniwersytecki 1, 50-137 Wrocław, Poland
Published at: 2023
Article status: Open
Licence: CC BY
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