Auto-Oedipa

: From Tragic Drama to Many-Mouthed Lyric

Abstract

The thesis has two parts; the first is a book titled Auto-Oedipa. This is a through-composed long-form work of dramatic poetry, which I call a ‘many-mouthed lytic’. Auto-Oedipa repurposes aspects of the Oedipus myth, and proposes a ‘queer’ reading of Freud’s ‘Oedipus Complex’ by regendering the protagonist as ‘Oedipa’. Auto-Oedipa was written, at least in the first instance, as a play for the stage. In writing the poems using the vehicle of the play format I discovered a wholly different context within which to speak, and once I removed the ‘skin’ of the text (directions, acts of scene setting, practical notes etc.). I found what was left resembled a kind of essential remainder. The poetic forms in Auto-Oedipa respond directly to the forms in Sophocles’ Oedipus the King, while the idea of poetry as a spoken, dramatic medium is rooted in the ways of speaking found in Greek tragedy. The second part is the critical commentary. The commentary begins by examining the origins of the project and discusses some of its thematic concerns. I discuss: myths around ‘female’ desire, sexuality and the performing body; the performance of gender; the attempt to narrate the ‘self’; and the role of repression. I them move on the explore ideas around self-display, exhibition and the ‘performing self’ in the poetry of three writers: Sylvia Plath, Tiffany Atkinson and Alice Notley. In the second section I present an analysis of the polyvocal work Sleepwalk on the Severn by Alice Oswald, and investigate Oswald’s approach to the longform dramatic project. Following this I present an analysis of my own collection. I define Auto-Oedipa as a text which utilises ‘auto-mythography’ as a methodology, and discuss the aesthetics and formal apparatus involved in the writing of the collection.

Date of Award	2017
Original language	English
Awarding Institution	Aberystwyth University
Supervisor	Tiffany Atkinson (Supervisor)