Revisiting the wreck: PJ Harvey's Dry and the drowned virgin-whore
2001; Cambridge University Press; Volume: 20; Issue: 3 Linguagem: Inglês
10.1017/s0261143001001593
ISSN1474-0095
Autores Tópico(s)Poetry Analysis and Criticism
ResumoThis is the place And I am here, the mermaid whose dark hair streams black, the merman in his armoured body We circle silently about the wreck we dive into the hold I am she: I am he ... (‘Diving into the Wreck’: Rich 1973, p. 24) Were Adrienne Rich to dive again today into the wreck – of history, of collective memory, of identity – she might be surprised to find Polly Jean Harvey already there, feasting in the depths on plots and symbols, greedily stuffing her storytelling sack. Like Rich, with her dual-sexed narrator (‘I am she: I am he’), Harvey enjoys playing at multiple selves, and in doing so, she tells stories that are fuelled equally by the fires of female and male, hetero- and homosexual desire. In the final stanza of her celebrated poem, Rich creates another memorable conundrum of syntax: ‘We are, I am, you are/by cowardice or courage/the one who find our way/back to this scene’ (Rich 1973, p. 24). With her suggestive pronoun games, Rich calls for a uniting of forces in the excavation of a troubled past. This seems to be Harvey's conviction as well. Hers is a musical dramatic stage upon which multiple characters, in combined voices and disparate musical styles, act out disorienting and sometimes disturbing tales of identity, sexuality and power.
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