ARCHIVE: 2 Letters and 2 typescript versions of “Economy.”
Anne Carson to Village Voice Literary Supplement Editor Lee Smith on “Economy”
Carson, Anne. Autograph letter signed “Anne Carson” to Lee Smith, Montreal, Feast of St. Roderick [March 13], 1995; one 8 ½” x 11” leaf; blue ink verso of printed-out page of “Economy” scratched out in pencil; creased where folded from mailing.
Together with:
Carson, Anne. “Economy.” 1995.
Five typescript leaves, with “136 Carson” written in blue on first leaf; two stray blue ink marks on page eight; creased where folded from mailing.
Together with:
Carson, Anne. “Economy.” 1995.
Two typescript leaves; hand-paginated, with revisions underlined by the author in red; creased where folded from mailing.
Together with:
Carson, Anne. Autograph letter signed “ac” to Lee Smith, Feast of St. Romualdo [Feb. 7], 1996; one 8 ½” x 11” leaf; blue ink on McGill University Department of Classics letterhead with red McGill crest; creased where folded from mailing.
Letters and revised essay drafts from Canadian poet and essayist Anne Carson to Village Voice Literary Supplement editor Lee Smith regarding publishing her essay “Economy” in the Supplement. In the first letter, Carson sends in revisions to the original draft of her essay, writing in her cover letter to Smith, “I have made 2 corrections in the ‘Economy’ manuscript, on pages 1 and 3, which I include.” In collating the edits with the (included) original version, one can see Carson replaced “But money is just a mediator for our longing” with “But money is just a mediator for our greed.” On the third leaf, she added to her analysis of Celan’s use of the German language, writing, “It was German he learned from his mother, it was German in which the order to shoot her in the back of the head will have been given. Language of the Death Masters.”
Carson’s essay “Economy” addresses “the way the overlapping senses of 'economy' play out in language and in monetary history,” bringing together “Simonides, who lived in fifth century B.C.E. Greece, and Celan, a 20th-century Romanian Jew who lived in Paris and wrote in German” (Lesser, Wendy. Threepenny Review; Kirby, David. Library Journal). Later, it would evolve into a book, Economy of the Unlost (Princeton University Press, 1999), in which this 1995 essay version serves as a portion of the preface.
In her letter, Carson specifies the way she wants essay text to appear: “When you print the piece please be careful to include the long marks over vowels in the Greek quotations. (Am I correct to assume you cannot set Greek type? I am not very fond of the way transliterated Greek looks, but at least it is not incorrect if the long marks are in place.” She concludes thanking Smith for “relieving [her] of the responsibility to review Frederick Turner’s book. That man is the child of a very strange ritual process. Spooky guy. (But the Felstiner book is splendid.)”
In the second letter to Smith, dated a year after the “Economy” revisions, Carson queries Smith about his interest in her latest work, including:
1. [yet another] essay on Economy (this one concerns the gospel of John chapter 12 and an ancient Greek epitaph).
2. Essay on Antonin Artaud (a week in the life of someone trying to write a TV program about him).
3. Essay on Edward Hopper (but this isn’t done; it is a commission from a dancer that I hope to work on over the summer).
Carson signs off with a compliment: “I like VLS very much and respect your literary taste,” she writes. “(Not something I can say to many editors nowadays).”
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