The autobiography of red analysis of variance and population

The first entry is purportedly taken from the Suda , a 10th-century Byzantine encyclopedia of the ancient Mediterranean world, whose author was formerly thought to be named Suidas, and whose name was historically confused with the title of the encyclopedia. The palinodia was a work of praise, also known as an encomium, and is said to have emerged out of a dream.

The second entry is from Isokrates, an ancient Greek rhetorician from the s B. Then Helen restored his sight. The third entry is from Plato, the famous Athenian philosopher, in his work Phaedrus.

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This passage describes that in ancient mythology, blinding someone was an established punishment for certain crimes. The third statement considers if his blindness was temporary, then whether this condition had a contingent cause, and so on. None of the statements resolve anything, but each leads to further specificity of irresolvable possibilities.

We are prepared to confront something like historical fiction, perhaps fabricated entries from real authors or texts. Yet we should also keep in mind that classicists frequently confront the issue that the historical records of ancient times themselves mixed fact and fiction; the two are not so easily distinguished. The Suda, the 10th-century encyclopedia referenced in Appendix A, is archived in translation online through the University of Kentucky.

So we can consider Appendix A as providing real primary source material that Carson used as reference points and inspiration in her construction of the story of Geryon and Herakles in Autobiography of Red. The generative capacity of the fragmentary and the unknowable belongs to all surviving scraps of ancient writing, whether fact or fiction. If Stesichoros was blinded for slandering Helen, and if his sight was restored when he retracted his slander, then it must mean that all the stories passed down for generations about Helen are false.

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No, she was never kidnapped by Paris and brought to Troy. We must dare to imagine that the whole mythology of Helen is false, and that Stesichoros was one of the few who admitted it. We are reminded of that blinding light here, when these three quiet refutations cast into doubt a whole mythological tradition.