"Queering the Simile: Expressing Gender and Sexuality Through Poetic Language"

“质疑明喻：通过诗意语言表达性别和性行为”

• 批准号: 2435421
• 金额: --
• 依托单位: University of Oxford
• 依托单位国家: 英国
• 项目类别: Studentship
• 财政年份: 2020
• 资助国家: 英国
• 起止时间: 2020 至 无数据
• 项目状态: 未结题
• 来源: https://gtr.ukri.org/projects?ref=studentship-2435421
• 关键词: Queering; Simile; Expressing; Gender; Sexuality

My project, which pans across comparative literature studies, classics, and classical reception, will ask the following questions: how has the figure of the simile historically provided poets with ways of evading precise definition and signification in poetic language? How does the simile allow for non-conforming expressions of identity, and what can its future theoretical endeavours be? I aim to not only consider the role of the simile in portraying non-conforming identities in ancient literature, but also to extrapolate and discuss how it can be and has been exploited by modern writers, as well as its future potentialities. As a first step, I will analyse and assess how the figure of the simile has been conceptualised in ancient rhetorics and modern literary theory. Aristotle's definition of it in the Rhetoric and the Poetics as a longer metaphor with greater explicatory powers has often led to an understanding of the simile as a 'simple' figure of speech: different studies have, however, highlighted not only the role of the simile in inverting set gender conventions in classical literature (Foley 1978), but also its potentialities for describing identities beyond the binary (Corbeill 2015). Analysing classical rhetorical tools through a modern theoretical lens, then, provides for new understandings of poetic speech and its role within the text: I thus aim to start from ancient definitions of the simile, to then utilize post-modern theory to complicate its current meaning. Studies on the gendered nature of language (Wittig 1985) will also aid me in considering the influence of poetic expression on the formation and representation of identity, and its value within queer theory more generally. Despite this past scholarship, the role the simile plays in offering a visual telling of different possible futures and identities beyond the binary is yet to be explored: this is something I aim to do through a modern analysis of queer writings as providing utopian spaces for readers to inhabit (Muñoz 2009), thus opening up a new utopian world of representation within poetic language and literature. With this framework in mind, I will then analyse the role of the simile as going beyond the simple binary of grammatical structures, in a series of different classical texts (such as the Odyssey, the Argonautica, and the Metamorphoses) and their modern reception (e.g. Maggie Nelson's The Argonauts, Ali Smith's Girl Meets Boy). The concluding part of my project will therefore explore ways of re-employing classical figures of speech for a new purpose in queer writing, developing new avenues for the queer experience through an understanding of its past (Love 2007). I thus aim to conclude with a reassessment of classical language as opening up new and future spaces for queer identities to inhabit, operating on the utopian value of poetic language (Barthes 1953).With this project, I then want to continuously draw out connections between classical literature and its value for queer writing today, operating on the idea that, as Jennifer Ingleheart puts it, 'Queer Classics reflects on, and provides a challenge to, Classics as a discipline'. To do so, I aim to employ modern philosophical, sociological and literary theory texts to re-asses and re-interpret classical texts and their past and more traditional scholarship, effectively moving across classics, comparative literature, and classical reception in my methodology. My work in reception studies and in the reassessment of classical language for future endeavors then aims to open up new avenues for queer reinterpretations and uses of the classics, engaging with current debates in literary theory and intersecting with both classics, their reception, and comparative literary studies

我的项目横跨比较文学研究、古典文学和古典文学接受，将提出以下问题：明喻的形象在历史上如何为诗人提供了逃避诗歌语言中精确定义和意义的方法？明喻如何允许身份的非一致性表达，它未来的理论努力是什么？我的目的不仅是考虑明喻在古代文学中描绘非一致性身份的作用，而且还要推断和讨论它如何被现代作家利用，以及它的未来潜力。作为第一步，我将分析和评估明喻是如何在古代修辞学和现代文学理论中被概念化的。亚里士多德在《修辞学与诗学》中将其定义为一个更长的隐喻，具有更强的解释力，这常常导致人们将明喻理解为一种“简单”的修辞手法：然而，不同的研究不仅强调了明喻在扭转古典文学中既定的性别惯例方面的作用（Foley 1978），而且还强调了它在描述二元之外的身份方面的潜力（Corbeill 2015）。然后，通过现代理论视角分析经典修辞工具，为诗歌言语及其在文本中的作用提供了新的理解。因此，我的目标是从古代对明喻的定义开始，然后利用后现代理论使其当前的含义复杂化。对语言的性别本质的研究（Wittig 1985）也将帮助我考虑诗歌表达对身份的形成和表现的影响，以及它在酷儿理论中更普遍的价值。尽管过去有过这样的学术研究，但明喻在视觉上讲述二元之外的不同可能的未来和身份方面所起的作用还有待探索：这是我的目标，通过对酷儿作品的现代分析，为读者提供乌托邦空间居住（Muñoz 2009），从而在诗歌语言和文学中开辟一个新的乌托邦世界。有了这个框架，我将分析明喻在一系列不同的经典文本（如《奥德赛》、《阿尔戈瑙提卡》和《变形记》）及其现代接受（如玛吉·纳尔逊的《阿尔戈英雄》、阿里·史密斯的《女孩遇见男孩》）中超越简单的二元语法结构的作用。因此，我的项目的最后部分将探索在酷儿写作中重新使用经典修辞的方法，通过对过去的理解，为酷儿的经历开辟新的途径（Love 2007）。因此，我的目的是通过对古典语言的重新评估来结束，它为酷儿身份的居住开辟了新的和未来的空间，在诗歌语言的乌托邦价值上运作（巴特，1953）。在这个项目中，我想不断地找出古典文学及其对今天酷儿写作的价值之间的联系，正如Jennifer Ingleheart所说，“酷儿经典反思了古典文学，并对古典文学作为一门学科提出了挑战”。为此，我的目标是利用现代哲学、社会学和文学理论文本来重新评估和重新解释经典文本及其过去和更传统的学术，在我的方法论中有效地跨越经典、比较文学和古典接受。我在接受研究和对古典语言的重新评估方面的工作旨在为经典的重新解释和使用开辟新的途径，参与当前文学理论的辩论，并与经典、它们的接受和比较文学研究相交叉