They tell of a strange winged red monster who lived on an island called Erytheia (which is an adjective meaning simply “The Red Place”) quietly tending a herd of magical cattle, until one day the hero Herakles came across the sea and killed him to get the cattle. We may argue that among all the different versions of Herakles’ tenth labour, Stesichoros was the first to propose an account relating the story from Geryon’s own perspective and experience.

Those seven sections recall the seven sections of the Greek nomos or lyric performance Stesichoros was famous for.ģ“What difference did Stesichoros make?” is the very first question Carson asks at the beginning of the first section. Not only is Carson focusing on the same subject, but she also sticks to the same form indeed, the novel is composed of seven sections: an essay on the Greek poet Stesichoros, translated fragments of Stesichoros’ Geryoneis, a lyric sequence based on the Geryoneis, a palinode, a mock interview and two appendices. The myth refers to Herakles’ tenth labour that consisted in killing three-bodied giant Geryon and in robbing his red cattle. 650 BC) and his Geryoneis (“The Geryon Matter”), which only survives in fragments. She blends the sources, ideas and themes from all her fields of expertise and thus often produces hybrid works that make her peculiarity in today’s literary scene.ĢShe wrote over the Greek myth of Geryon and Herakles with special reference to Stesichoros (born c. Her poetry, prose or essays are also deeply influenced by history, literature and art. As a Hellenist, her works are pregnant with Greek mythology she references, modernizes or translates.

(Lyn Hejinian The Language of Inquiry)ġAnne Carson is a contemporary Canadian poet, essayist and translator. We delight in our sensuous involvement with the materials of language, we long to join words to the world- to close the gap between ourselves and things- and we suffer from doubt and anxiety because of our inability to do so. In the gap between what one wants to say (or what one perceives there is to say) and what one can say (what is sayable), words provide for a collaboration and a desertion.

The autobiography of red