Abstract

This thesis considers the aesthetic and pedagogical potential of error as it emerges in the poetry and criticism of Anne Carson. At stake is error's status as a viable alternative to irony, which I argue is an ethically problematic stance employed both in literary practice and the classroom. Carson's obsession with mistakes makes available a mode of engagement with texts and students that refuses the cool distance of ironic detachment. Irony is a dialectical strategy that allows speakers not to commit to critical stances or emotional positions. It puts readers and students on their guard. Invoking error, on the other hand, allows us to discuss a wider range of cognitive, ethical, and emotional events in which we commit or invest in ways generally considered wrong. This thesis has two chapters. The first argues that Carson's poetry engages such phenomena as impersonation, mistranslation, and catachresis in order to stage a poetics of error. The second moves from rhetorical to relational concerns, foregrounding Carson's status as a professor of the humanities in order to draw out the pedagogical consequences spurred by her poetics.