ABSTRACT

Anne Carson's recent work has experimented with intermedia composition, leaving behind what one reviewer calls `the medium of the ordinary book'. While her critical reception often considers these experiments in relation to new media, I argue that we understand Carson in the context of a reflection on the concept of medium as such. This kind of reflection on medium is evident both in contemporary poetic experiment and recent work in poetics which consider medium as the locus of historical practice. By articulating the constraints of her linguistic medium Carson introduces difference in her work. Medium emerges as a hybrid concept, encompassing apparatuses of mediation; conventions; and the mediality or impart-ability (Benjamin) of language as a social practice. The article charts these aspects of medium in Nox and Autobiography of Red, focusing on medium as a physical substrate, ekphrasis and translation, recurring elements in Carson's work concerned with mediality: the means of representation, address, figuration and communication. I conclude by suggesting that through these engagements with medium the historical nature of the work emerges, and, consequently, its means of differing from the present; this represents a resource against what Rosalind Krauss calls `the deadening embrace of the general' in contemporary art.

摘要

安妮·卡森 (Anne Carson) 最近的作品尝试了跨媒体组合，留下了一位评论家所说的“普通书籍的媒介”。虽然她的批判性接受经常将这些实验与新媒体联系起来，但我认为我们在对媒体概念本身进行反思的背景下理解卡森。这种对媒介的反思在当代诗学实验和近期将媒介视为历史实践的场所的诗学作品中都很明显。通过阐明她的语言媒介的限制，卡森在她的作品中引入了差异。媒介作为一个混合概念出现，包括调解装置；公约；以及语言作为一种社会实践的媒介性或传授能力（本杰明）。这篇文章用图表描绘了Nox中介质的这些方面和《红色自传》，侧重于作为物理基质的媒介、ekphrasis 和翻译，这是卡森作品中与媒介有关的反复出现的元素：表现、地址、形象和交流的手段。最后，我建议通过这些与媒介的接触，作品的历史性质出现了，因此，它与现在不同的方式出现了；这代表了一种资源，以对抗 Rosalind Krauss 所说的当代艺术中的“将军的死去拥抱”。