Anne Carson's classical desires : reach without grasp

Anne Carson is one of the most versatile of those living writers in the English language who have drawn deeply from the well of Classical waters.

This book explores the role of generic transgressions and of antique spirituality throughout Carson's long career of re-staging the classical literary legacy in creative contemporary terms.

It examines the way in which Carson deliberately plays with genre - and with the expectations normally associated with certain genres - and shows that it is the fluidity of genre expectations that she adapts most creatively from the classical tradition.

Trained as a classicist, but perhaps better known as an accomplished poet and translator, Carson burst on the scene in 1986 with the publication of her first book, Eros the Bittersweet.

What this book announced most clearly, in addition to Carson's complex identity as a poet, classicist and philosopher, was her unique ability to work across boundaries of genre and to create new genres along the way.

This book also considers how religion (loosely understood as a mingled interest in grief, mourning, aspiration and transcendence) is a unifying thread in Carson's work, once again inspired by classical models.