Amanda Thalmann

Literature and New Media Work

This is a collage on "Helen" by the poet H.D. My conception of it is to present images that contradict the usual perception of Helen as a coy instigator of a massive war. Some of this was inspired by an interpretation by Julia Hamilton Hanson in my English 81 class, so I have to give her credit. In case people don't know, the story of Helen is that she was born of Leda who was raped by Zeus in the form of a Swan. I wanted to indicate to indicate the violence of that and the irony of the line that Helen was "born of love." I also wanted to show the process by which Helen turned from being a victim to being a still object that "all Greece reviles."

"Helen" by H.D.

All Greece hates
the still eyes in the white face,
the lustre of the olives
where she stands,
and the white hands.

All Greece reviles
the wan face when she smiles,
hating it deeper still
when it grows wan and white,
remembering past enchantments
and past ills.

Greece sees unmoved,
God's daughter, born of love,
the beauty of cool feet
and slenderest knees,
could love indeed the maid,
only if she were laid,
white ash amid funeral cypresses.

This is my interpretation collage for Samuel Beckett's play Waiting For Godot. The background is the actual set piece from the stage where I saw it in Dublin. I tried to think about how to conceptualize what happened in front of it over the course of the play. For me, the play is not at all depressing or hopeless the way some Theatre of the Absurd can be. I think it has a great deal of melencholy, yes, but also explosive human emotion and hope.

This is my collage on the intersection of Literature and Culture. I used a poem by Wallace Stevens that has always been my favourite.