Graduation Paper:
A Broken Lyre: History, Violence and Art in Cormac McCarthy´s Blood Meridian
Year: 2011
Abstract
Blood Meridian is a novel that has become an important referent in the American Literature of the late XX century. The novel depicts a new perspective of the so-called conquest of the West as a devastating landscape full of violence and gore. This study explores the different conceptions of violence which could be inferred from the novel, and how that violence became an object of aesthetic representation. On the other hand, as the novel problematizes history and myth combining historical sources with fiction, it configures a new view of a particular event in American History. Part of the reflection that this paper deals with is precisely how History is conceived and depicted in the book. Cormac McCarthy‘s style is the catalyst which encompasses all those topics and stories in a superb artwork that unveils a ghastly panorama of a particular moment of the USA‘s past, creating a new image of it. An image that McCarthy crafted weaving history and myth to produce a new perspective of the Conquest of the West. Thus, this paper analyzes and interprets the possible connections that could be established from the novel among art, history and violence. What McCarthy achieves in that sense, is to reflect upon those issues by re-using the materials already created and a long literary tradition through the aesthetic configuration with which he conflates what the novel is.
Keywords
violence, history, Westerns, image, representation, aesthetic
References
Barthes, Roland El grado cero de la escritura; seguido por nueves ensayos crÃticos. Siglo Veintiuno Editores. Buenos Aires. 1973
Benjamin, Walter Illumination: Essays and Reflections Jonathan Cape. London. 1968. pp. 255-266
Blanchot, Maurice El libro por venir Editorial Trotta. Madrid. 2005
Bloom, Harold How to Read and Why Simon and Schuster, Inc. 2000 pp. 254-263
Cortese, James Bourgeois Myth and Anti-myth: The Western Hero of the Fifties Socio-criticism Vol. 5 No. 15. 1976 pp. 122-132
Cox, J. Randolph The Dime Novel Companion Greenwood Publishing Group. 2000
Durham, Philip A General Classification of 1531 Dime Novels Huntington Library Quarterly Vol. 17 No. 3. 1954 pp. 287-291
Eddins Dwight ―Everything a Hunter and Everything Hunted‖: Schopenhauer and Cormac McCarthy‘s ―Blood Meridian‖ Critique. Fall Vol. 45 No.1 2003
Eliade, Mircea Lo sagrado y lo profano Paidós. Barcelona. 1998
Gunter, James C. The Rhetoric of Violence Brigham Young University (Thesis) 2008
Jackman, Mary R. Violence in Social Life Annual Review Sociology. 2002 pp. 387-415
Masters, Joshua J. ―Witness to Uttermost Edge of the World‖: Judge Holden‘s Textual Enterprise in Cormac McCarthy‘s ―Blood Meridian‖. Critique. Fall Vol. 40 No. 1 1998
Mitchell, Jason P. Louise Erdrich‘s ―Love Medicine‖ and Cormac McCarthy‘s ―Blood Meridian‖, and the (De)Mythologizing of the American West Critique. 2000
Moos, Dan Lacking the Article Itself: Representation and History in Cormac McCarthy‘s ―Blood Meridian‖. The Cormac McCarthy Journal Online. http://www.cormacmccarthy.com/journal/Default.htm http://www.cormacmccarthy.com/journal/PDFs/Moos.pdf
Phillips, Dana History and the Ugly Facts of Cormac McCarthy‘s ―Blood Meridian‖. American Literature Vol. 68 No. 2. Duke University Press. 1996
Pouliquen, Hèléne TeorÃa y análisis sociocrÃtico Universidad Nacional de Colombia.
McCarthy, Cormac Blood Meridian or The Evening Redness the West The Modern Library. New York. 2001
Lectures on Blood Meridian by Professor M. Hungerford. Yale University: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FgyZ4ia25gg
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ZFmf4T5L3o
Rutherford, Alison et al Violence: A Glossary Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health Vol. 61 No. 8. August, 2007 pp. 676-680
Sepich, John Notes on ―Blood Meridian‖ Revised and Expanded Edition. University Texas Press. Austin. 2008
Shaviro, Stephen The Very Life of Darkness in Bloom, Harold (Editor) Cormac McCarthy Infobase Publishing. New York. 2009 pp. 9-21
Sontag, Susan Regarding the Pain of Others Farrar, Strauss and Giroux. New York. 2003
Spurgeon, Sara L. Foundation of Empire: The Sacred Hunter and the Eucharist of Wilderness in Cormac McCarthy‘s ―Blood Meridian‖ in Bloom, Harold (Editor) Cormac McCarthy Infobase Publishing. New York. 2009 pp. 85-105
Terris, Milton Violence in a Violent Society Journal of Public Health Policy. Vol. 9 No.3 1998 pp.289-302
Tompkins, Jane Western of Everything: The Inner Life of Westerns. New York. Oxford. UP. 1992
Weil, Simone The Iliad or the Poem of Force Chicago Review. 1965 (Translation) pp. 5-30 Retrieved January 22nd, 2011 from http://people.virginia.edu/~jdk3t/WeilTheIliad.pdf
Welsh, Jim Notes on ―Blood Meridian‖: Revised and Expanded Edition In The Journal of American Culture Vol. 32 No. 1 March, 2009 pp. 74-75