Abstract
En el presente artículo, pretendemos abordar la pregunta de cómo Katherine Bradley y Edith Cooper articulan su íntimo diálogo con la poesía de Safo en su primer poemario, Long Ago (1889), publicado bajo el pseudónimo de Michael Field. La respuesta que proponemos para este interrogante se desarrolla en una profunda reflexión que interpreta Long Ago como un texto denso y audaz donde se revisa y se reubica la ontología del arte literario en posiciones ambivalentes. La conclusión primordial a que llegamos es que el poemario en sí representa todo un paradigma de teoría intertextual aplicada que propicia encuentros complejos, inestables y fértiles ente el inglés y el griego, lo traducible y lo sublime, lo dependiente y lo emancipado, lo mimético y lo original, lo empático y lo distante, lo reparativo y lo fragmentario, lo presente y lo ausente, el ante-tipo y el tipo, lo inmanente y lo transtextual.
Highlights
Bradley and Edith Cooper articulate their intimate dialogue with Sappho’s poetry in their first volume of poetry, Long Ago (1889), published under the pseudonym of Michael Field
Edith Cooper, both self-identified with the singular pen name of Michael Field, decided to embark on their first lyrical project, Long Ago
I would emphasise the conjunction of empathy and distance in its application to the hermeneutic method behind Long Ago
Summary
In Long Ago, the textual surface promises complexity and abundance of meaning. In the cover of the book, the title hangs enigmatically above the roundel of a woman that must have existed long ago. I find this requisite element to be undoubtedly conspicuous in Long Ago, judging from Henry Wharton’s enthusiastic reply to the Fields, and from the intellectual and aesthetic allure that comes along with the prospect of a Sapphic Graeco-English handshake This rich juxtaposition –with Sappho, Greek and English all together– estranges, excites and surprises as early as in the very promising cover. Sappho figures as the writer of this primitive Greek, but her historical identity sheds little light on what it could have meant in its fullest form5 Her words are elliptic, broken, solitary, enigmatic, and sublime in that they strongly appeal to Michael Field by virtue of their very brokenness, and yet they remain epistemologically evasive and even uncanny. The Sapphic word is both inside and outside Long Ago
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