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Orpheus and Eurydice’s Myth Revisited in Jennifer Egan’s A Visit From The Goon Squad
Maria Rosa Burillo Gadea
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DOI:10.17265/2159-5836/2017.06.001
Universidad Complutense, Madrid, Spain
Rilke’s Orpheus sonnet 27 runs, “Does it truly exist: time the destroyer? / When topples the tower atop the peaceful height? / This heart belonging to the gods forever,/ When will the demi-urge send it with dire might?” And it is precisely on the destructing force of time that Jennifer Egan constructs her narrative upon. A Visit From the Goon Squad is exactly Orpheus and Eurydice’s myth revisited, and she focuses on the tragedy of decline in 21st century America. A variety of characters unfulfilled lives conform the map of New York City, and Orpheus lyre has become a rock and roll group, The Conduits, as a sort of misconnecting force in the lives of them all. A careful literary distance gives an impressionistic vision of inevitability and opportunity lost. My approach focuses on the different interpretations of the classic myth, and on how Rilke’s rhetorical questions offer an eclectic and metallic answer in Jennifer Egan’s contemporary view.
Orpheus, Eurydice, music, purity, myth, Arts
http://post45.research.yale.edu/2016/05/this-is-all-artificial-an-interview-with-jennifer-egan/
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