ENGLISH LITERATURE & CULTURE ‘I’ IS ANOTHER: AUTOBIOGRAPHY ACROSS GENRES Camelia Elias

Andrei Codrescu (1946) emigrated to the US in 1966 from Communist Romania became a US citizen in 1981 poet, novelist, essayist, screenwriter; columnist on National Public Radio; National Public Radio editor of Exquisite Corpse,Exquisite Corpse Professor of English at Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge. Codrescu’s websitewebsite Sorensen’s blog

the question of audience the mother, the other, oneself politics of recognition auto-biography vs pseudo-biography  the private is exchangeable

the question of genre why not calling it a novel? consequences: private/public auto-biography vs. pseudo-biography  apology

the question of memory the chicken story  true  individual  false  collective  neuter  significant

the question of narrative why and how to tell a story  pragmatic  epistemological the question of narrative alterations  does it matter that perhaps it wasn’t chickens?

preface as satire is the best mode in which to write to your autobiography it’s perceptive it deals with serious problems it doesn’t think that it needs to be serious itself as a form relies on understatement it projects a double vision of the world  irony exploits the relationship between appearance and reality it demands fantasy it demands an implicit moral standard distortion takes the place of displacement

Codrescu’s Triumvirate

Vlad Dracula (Vlad Tepes (the Impaler))

narrative 3rd, 1st pers. singular narrative omniscient sets up frames (embedded tales) events are told in snapshots photographs  “Unlike most people I was not born but snapped and I was not gestated but developed. Both my parents were photographers. And both of them were Jewish. They were bad Jews because they were photographers. God said, "Thou shalt not make graven images," and both of them did.”

characters & character relations mythical or legendary characters (Dracula, Ionescu, Nadia, Whitman, Rimbaud) Mother (a paradox, determinate/indeterminate mind, a victim without an audience)) Father (a mystery, a hero/an idiot) Grandma (first story teller) Aunt Elena (logic, numbers) Friends (primary school, university, the American friends) Women (Ilse, the gypsy, Kira, Alice, American poetesses) characters have functions beyond their descriptive attributes

Setting Alba Iulia a waiting place a storytelling place provincial hot

Setting Sibiu a place of initiation and learning, a multicultural place first sexual encounters first attempts at writing poetry

Setting The USA a poet’s place

Setting passive places vs active places stories to watch  provincial places through their valuation of conservatism stories to tell  cosmopolitan through their valuation of diversity

Identity through language divided/homogeneous: the protagonist is not conscious of the notion of linguistic difference kaleidoscope of languages - kaleidoscope of multitudes interested in languages’ potential to be expressed in poetry language enables impersonations

Identity through translations only one translation is possible: freedom translate oneself into a version of America translation megalomania:  language to language  place to place  one to two  two to zero

Identity through ‘naturalization’ files (anagram for life) books (The Life and Times) aliases “shoes”

Themes exile (a myth)  metaphysics of exile (man was thrown out of Eden) language  (natural but also ‘vampirized’) writing  enables the co-existence of multitudes  genre  story telling

Style Self-reflexive  obsession with form  obsession with definitions: memoir, autobiography, history Playful  anecdotes  mixes colloquialisms with high style