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Автор Anne Carson

FIRST VINTAGE CONTEMPORARIES EDITION, AUGUST 1999

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. Published in the United States by Vintage Books, a division of Random House, Inc. , New York, and simultaneously in Canada by Random House of Canada Limited, Toronto. Originally published in hardcover in the United States by Alfred A. Knopf, Inc. , New York, in 1998.

Vintage Books, Vintage Contemporaries, and colophon are trademarks of Random House, Inc.

Grateful acknowledgment is made to Harvard University Press for permission to reprint poem no. 1748 by Emily Dickinson from The Poems of Emily Dickinson, edited by Thomas H. Johnson (Cambridge, Mass. : The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press), copyright © 1951, 1955, 1979, 1983 by the President and Fellows of Harvard College. Reprinted by permission of the publishers and the Trustees of Amherst College.

eBook ISBN: 978-0-345-80701-4

Trade Paperback ISBN: 978-0-375-70129-0

The Library of Congress has cataloged the Alfred A. Knopf edition as follows:

Carson, Anne.

Autobiography of Red / by Anne Carson. — 1st ed.

p. cm.

ISBN 0-375-40133-4

1. Herakles (Greek mythology)—Poetry. 2. Stesichoros. Geryoneis—Adaptations. 3. Epic poetry, Greek—Adaptations. 4. Monsters— Mythology—Poetry. I. Title.

PS3553. A7667A94 1998

811’. 54—dc21 97-49472 CIP

v3. 1

FOR WILL

Note to Readers of the Ebook Edition

This book contains long lines of poetry. The line below is the longest in the book.

She says it’s got blood in it. What do you mean blood? Cow blood, it’s a local recipe. Supposed to

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CONTENTS

Cover

Title Page

Dedication

Note to Readers of the Ebook Edition

I. RED MEAT: WHAT DIFFERENCE DID STESICHOROS MAKE?

II. RED MEAT: FRAGMENTS OF STESICHOROS

III. APPENDIX A

IV. APPENDIX B

V. APPENDIX C

VI. AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF RED

VII. INTERVIEW

The Autobiography of Red: Full-Page Images

A Note About the Author

Other Books by This Author

RED MEAT:

WHAT DIFFERENCE

DID

STESICHOROS MAKE?

I like the feeling of words doing

as they want to do and as they have to do.

GERTRUDE STEIN

HE CAME after Homer and before Gertrude Stein, a diffi-cult interval for a poet. Born about 650 B. C. on the north coast of Sicily in a city called Himera, he lived among refugees who spoke a mixed dialect of Chalcidian and Doric. A refugee population is hungry for language and aware that anything can happen. Words bounce. Words, if you let them, will do what they want to do and what they have to do. Stesichoros’ words were collected in twenty-six books of which there remain to us a dozen or so titles and several collections of fragments. Not much is known about his working life (except the famous story that he was struck blind by Helen; see Appendixes A, B, C). He seems to have had a great popular success. How did the critics regard him? Many ancient praises adhere to his name. “Most Homeric of the lyric poets,” says Longinus. “Makes those old stories new,” says Suidas. “Driven by a craving for change,” says Dionysios of Halikarnassos. “What a sweet genius in the use of adjectives!” adds Hermogenes. Here we touch the core of the question “What difference did Stesichoros make?” A comparison may be useful. When Gertrude Stein had to sum up Picasso she said, “This one was working. ” So say of Stesichoros, “This one was making adjectives. ”