The Glass Essay

Fiction | Poem | Adult | Published in 1994

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Further Reading & Resources

Related Poems

“Wuthering Heights” by Sylvia Plath (1961)

Like Anne Carson, the Brontës captivated the American poet, Sylvia Plath. Plath visited their Brontë estate in Haworth and wrote a poem, “Wuthering Heights,” named after Emily’s novel. The poem lacks the expansive narrative of “The Glass Essay,” but it shares many of the same literary devices, such as forceful imagery and personification. As with Carson, the Brontë legend begets violence and disquiet; Plath, too, wrote deeply intense poems about love and family. Unlike Carson, critics view Plath as a confessional poet and cast her as the speaker of her intimate poems, which include “Daddy” (1962) and “Lady Lazarus” (1962).

“Father’s Old Blue Cardigan” by Anne Carson (2000)

“Father’s Old Blue Cardigan” appears in Carson’s poetry collection, Men in the Off Hours (2000). The poem lends further credence that “The Glass Essay” is a personal poem about Carson’s life. As in “The Glass Essay,” the speaker’s father in “Father’s Old Blue Cardigan” suffers from a disease that adversely impacts his mental state. The speaker remembers the moment in which she knew he was “going mad inside his laws.” This poem, too, features domestic settings, personification, and an exploration of the “laws” that govern one’s perception of the world.

“Appendix to Ordinary Time” by Anne Carson (2000)

In “The Glass Essay,” the speaker uses Emily Brontë to investigate her life and inner turmoil. In “Appendix to Ordinary Time,” a poem from Men in the Off Hours, Carson employs the early 20th-century English writer Virginia Woolf to contemplate the death of her mother. As with Brontë, what interests Carson is the fine points of her work. Carson said her favorite part of The Collected Works of Emily Brontë was the section showing the edits made by Charlotte. In “Appendix to Ordinary Time,” Carson focuses not on one of Woolf’s famous works, like Mrs. Dalloway (1925) or To the Lighthouse (1927), but on what is crossed out in her papers and manuscripts.

Further Literary Resources

Sexual Personae by Camille Paglia (1990)

In Sexual Personae, Paglia examines how sex informs cultures and artists, from the Greeks to Emily Dickinson. One of the artists Paglia evaluates is Emily Brontë. Similar to Carson, Emily’s sexuality and gender captivate Paglia. Unlike Carson, Paglia does not view Emily as sexually unfulfilled or confined by gender. For Paglia, Emily is a “woman who pressed at the limits of gender.” In Wuthering Heights, Paglia believes Emily “leaps across the borderline of gender into her savage hero” and fashions a liberated text of “psychosexual flux.”

Nox by Anne Carson (2010)

In Nox, Carson mourns the death of her brother Michael. She does so by showcasing her willingness to mix genres and mediums. Inside a box is a notebook featuring photos, paintings, collages, poems, and a letter from Michael. Just as Carson used Virginia Woolf to work through the death of her mom in “Appendix on Ordinary Time,” she uses the Latin poet Catullus to confront the death of Michael.

The Albertine Workout by Anne Carson (2014)

In “The Glass Essay,” Carson works out Emily Brontë. She pushes and pulls her in many directions. She digs into her poems, novel, and disputed personal life. For the chapbook The Albertine Workout, Carson works out the fabled literary character Albertine. Albertine is the narrator’s main love interest in Marcel Proust’s seven-volume French novel In Search of Lost Time (1913-1927). She links to themes of desire and imprisonment. As critics believe that Albertine represents Proust’s male chauffeur, Alfred Agostinelli, with whom he was reportedly in love, the character of Albertine possesses the same mythological energy as Emily.