Notes from Source: Sasha-Mae Eccleston, in “Fantasies of Mimnermos in Anne Carson’s “The Brainsex Paintings” (Plainwater),” examines Carson’s combination of loose translations of Mimnermos with an impossible interview with that archaic Greek poet. Eccleston first locates the development of fantasy within the context of scientism, in order to raise questions about how scholarship presents ‘reality.’ Eccleston nexts shifts to Carson’s presentation of Mimnermos as elusive in the fantastic interview, and then follows this with detailed discussions of Carson’s translations of his first three poems. In Eccleston’s reading, Carson uses fantastic tropes to challenge the authoritative pose of traditional scholarship, rendering memory as obscure as fantasy.

Further Notes: DOI: 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780190610050.003.0013