Covid Looming between Poetic Lines, behind Ambulance Windows and in the Margins of Screens
This article analyses a selection of poems written during the 2020 pandemic and which all look at the Covid from a distance: the virus is represented (and circulated) by passing ambulances whose swiftness and opaque windows block all visual access to the suffering patient that lies inside. In these...
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| 發表在: | URI:https://journals.openedition.org/angles, |
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| 主要作者: | |
| 格式: | Article ou chapitre numérique |
| 語言: | Anglais |
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Angles
2024
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| 主題: | |
| 在線閱讀: | Accès Université d'Orléans et IFPM Accès Université d'Orléans et IFPM |
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openedition-oai:revues.org:angles_8043 |
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openedition |
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openedition-oai:revues.org:angles_8043 https://doi.org/10.4000/12lxp urn:doi:10.4000/12lxp en https://journals.openedition.org/angles/8043 2024-11-03T01:00:00Z info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess article info:eu-repo/semantics/article urn:handle:20.500.13089/12lxp https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ Covid Looming between Poetic Lines, behind Ambulance Windows and in the Margins of Screens Angles Société des Anglicistes de l'Enseignement Supérieur info:eu-repo/semantics/reference/issn/2274-2042 URI:https://journals.openedition.org/angles Brault-Dreux, Elise poésie spectateur confinement ambulance écrans poetry screen lockdown ambulance spectator This article analyses a selection of poems written during the 2020 pandemic and which all look at the Covid from a distance: the virus is represented (and circulated) by passing ambulances whose swiftness and opaque windows block all visual access to the suffering patient that lies inside. In these poems, the ambulance is therefore much more than a mere emergency vehicle: it tends to become a “vehicle” in the metaphorization of vulnerable existence as an urgent race. In other poems, the virus is evoked, glimpsed at, on a TV or phone screen, within the limits of the transiently shiny rectangles. In both situations, the presence of the virus is hence merely evoked or only metonymically suggested, and yet it is blaring, for it is everywhere in everyone’s mind. A selection of poems by various poets – Simon Armitage, Deborah Harvey, Keith Hutson, Greg Rappleye, Jacqueline Saphra, Alan Shapiro and David Tait – hence reveals how spectators of passing ambulances or of news feeds turn out to be at once drawn and deterred, their eyes both allured and frustrated. Standing safely at a politically imposed distance, these unusual spectators of unusual performances, imagine, fear, hope or despair, in any case somehow empathise.Poets here studied have managed to spectacularize an impossible spectacle—to embrace the imposed distance and seize the ambiguous tensions there at stake. Cet article se propose d’analyser un corpus de poèmes tous écrits pendant la pandémie de 2020 et qui observent les effets du Covid, les patients, depuis une certaine distance : le virus y est représenté par des ambulances dont la rapidité et les fenêtres fumées empêchent tout accès visuel au patient qui se trouve à l’intérieur. Dans ces poèmes, l’ambulance est bien plus qu’un simple véhicule d’urgence : elle tend à devenir le « véhicule » au sein du processus de métaphorisation de l’existence vulnérable en une course contre la montre. Dans d’autres poèmes, le virus est évoqué, entre-aperçu, sur un écran de télévision ou de téléphone, dans les limites des rectangles fugacement lumineux. Dans les deux types de situation, la présence du virus est seulement évoquée ou suggérée métonymiquement, et pourtant le virus est éblouissant, il est partout présent dans tous les esprits. L’analyse d’une sélection de poèmes variés (de Simon Armitage, Deborah Harvey, Keith Hutson, Greg Rappleye, Jacqueline Saphra, Alan Shapiro et David Tait) révèle comment les spectateurs, qu’ils observent une ambulance ou un écran de téléphone ou de télévision, ressentent à la fois une fascination et une répulsion, leurs regards étant simultanément attirés et frustrés. Alors qu’ils observent les règles imposées et se tiennent à distance, ces spectateurs de performances itératives, imaginent, craignent, espèrent, souvent avec une certaine empathie. Les poètes ici étudiés ont su rendre spectaculaire un spectacle impossible ; ils s’emparent de la distance imposée et parviennent à saisir les tensions ambiguës qui s’y jouent. |
| collection |
OpenEdition Journal |
| language |
Anglais |
| format |
Article ou chapitre numérique |
| building |
0/Bibliothèque numérique/ 1/Bibliothèque numérique/OpenEdition Journals/ |
| topic |
poésie spectateur confinement ambulance écrans poetry screen lockdown ambulance spectator |
| spellingShingle |
poésie spectateur confinement ambulance écrans poetry screen lockdown ambulance spectator Brault-Dreux, Elise Covid Looming between Poetic Lines, behind Ambulance Windows and in the Margins of Screens |
| description |
This article analyses a selection of poems written during the 2020 pandemic and which all look at the Covid from a distance: the virus is represented (and circulated) by passing ambulances whose swiftness and opaque windows block all visual access to the suffering patient that lies inside. In these poems, the ambulance is therefore much more than a mere emergency vehicle: it tends to become a “vehicle” in the metaphorization of vulnerable existence as an urgent race. In other poems, the virus is evoked, glimpsed at, on a TV or phone screen, within the limits of the transiently shiny rectangles. In both situations, the presence of the virus is hence merely evoked or only metonymically suggested, and yet it is blaring, for it is everywhere in everyone’s mind. A selection of poems by various poets – Simon Armitage, Deborah Harvey, Keith Hutson, Greg Rappleye, Jacqueline Saphra, Alan Shapiro and David Tait – hence reveals how spectators of passing ambulances or of news feeds turn out to be at once drawn and deterred, their eyes both allured and frustrated. Standing safely at a politically imposed distance, these unusual spectators of unusual performances, imagine, fear, hope or despair, in any case somehow empathise.Poets here studied have managed to spectacularize an impossible spectacle—to embrace the imposed distance and seize the ambiguous tensions there at stake. |
| author |
Brault-Dreux, Elise |
| author_facet |
Brault-Dreux, Elise |
| author_sort |
Brault-Dreux, Elise |
| title |
Covid Looming between Poetic Lines, behind Ambulance Windows and in the Margins of Screens |
| title_short |
Covid Looming between Poetic Lines, behind Ambulance Windows and in the Margins of Screens |
| title_full |
Covid Looming between Poetic Lines, behind Ambulance Windows and in the Margins of Screens |
| title_fullStr |
Covid Looming between Poetic Lines, behind Ambulance Windows and in the Margins of Screens |
| title_full_unstemmed |
Covid Looming between Poetic Lines, behind Ambulance Windows and in the Margins of Screens |
| title_sort |
covid looming between poetic lines, behind ambulance windows and in the margins of screens |
| publisher |
Angles |
| publishDate |
2024 |
| container_title |
URI:https://journals.openedition.org/angles |
| url |
https://ezproxy.univ-orleans.fr/login?url=https://doi.org/10.4000/12lxp https://ezproxy.univ-orleans.fr/login?url=https://journals.openedition.org/angles/8043 |
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