"Let me make myself crystal". T. S. Eliot, le postmodernisme et la transparence trompeuse des clichés dans la poésie de Carol Ann Duffy.

Auteurs

  • Eleonora Ravizza Università degli Studi di Bergamo

Résumé

This essay approaches the concept of “poetic transparency” from two interconnected perspectives, i.e., the modern and the postmodern. Starting from T. S. Eliot’s reflections on poetry and transparency, the essay addresses how Eliot’s modernist aesthetics becomes a site of Carol Ann Duffy’s poetic and critical exploration. The former Poet Laureate (2009-19) and her literary predecessor follow two opposite, and yet interconnected paths: while Eliot claims to work through artificiality striving to reach the “essence” of poetry, Duffy digs through the apparent naturalness of everyday language to unveil its opacity. In Duffy’s dramatic monologues – among which a prominent role is given to “Psychopath”, from Selling Manhattan (1987) – the concept of transparency is linked to a reflection on the medial presence of language. Duffy manipulates clichés and conventions to undertake a critical process which is strictly linked with Derridean différance. She exploits the superficiality of the structures of language to create a sense of alienation and disorientation in readers, who are presented with the experience of marginalized characters – “Others” towards whom sympathy is often impossible, and yet whose identities come into being through a variety of clichés which readers will easily recognize as part of their experience.

Biographie de l'auteur

Eleonora Ravizza, Università degli Studi di Bergamo

Eleonora Ravizza ha conseguito il dottorato di ricerca in Lingue e Letterature Euroamericane/ Literary and Cultural Studies nel 2012 in cotutela fra lʼUniversità degli studi di Bergamo e la Justus-Liebig Universitaet di Giessen (Germania). È stata membro dellʼInternational Graduate Center for the Study of Culture (GCSC) dellʼUniversità di Giessen, e dellʼEuropean PhD Net "Literary and Cultural Studies" (Università di Bergamo, Giessen, Lisbona, Helsinki, Stoccolma). Anglista e comparatista, si occupa principalmente di letteratura post-coloniale, in particolar modo di letteratura anglo-caraibica. I suoi ambiti di ricerca riguardano le tematiche dellʼibridità culturale e delle contaminazioni, gli studi su letteratura ed identità, e la filosofia del linguaggio. Attualmente è professore a contratto di Lingua inglese presso l'Università degli studi di Bergamo e presso l'Università statale di Milano.

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Publiée

2020-06-15

Comment citer

Ravizza, E. (2020). "Let me make myself crystal". T. S. Eliot, le postmodernisme et la transparence trompeuse des clichés dans la poésie de Carol Ann Duffy. Elephant & Castle, (22). Consulté à l’adresse https://elephantandcastle.unibg.it/index.php/eac/article/view/296

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