Introduction
What is a Lyrical Essay? it’s a form of literature that is a hybrid of essay and poetic writings to create a work that is neither and both. often times, the lyrical essay ends up being a form of autobiographical nonfiction literature. For this unit, we had to take a subject that was important to us and write a lyrical around it.
1. The Essay
Hallowed Halls
What else is a woman but a foe to friendship?
a desirable calamity or that domestic danger
Is she a necessary evil or a natural temptation
Or is she really, after this
Just the object of your fixation
The story of our dear marnie
Starts and ends with a rope
For the woman scorned
And her wrath in hell
Begins with a simple trope
That hopeful shine in her eyes
disappears and is no more.
The leash tightening around her neck
Her fate sealed, cast ashore
For the finer sex
makes a fine red pigment
When cracked open with that hex
In praise of the art
And that red crimson hue
Derived from her body
And her spirit that once grew
For the girl before the mirror
Weeps softly in her sleep
Her future slipping away
As she takes that final leap
He cries “Lolita my love!”
With the blood trickling through
As there’s no doubt, my dear humbert,
It’ll come back for you
For tippi, for dora, for shelley and jacqueline
For Uma, nicole, for Marie and francine
The blood of these women
Stain our hallowed halls of fame
For the art we value at their expense
Is only valued in name
For the Lyrical Essay Unit, I was really inspired by a specific interpretation of the novel Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov and the treatment of Women in the art world. Many of the most famous men in the world of art and literature like Picasso and Albert Camus have very famously treated women incredibly poorly. Picasso specifically had a habit of taking female artists as his lovers and muses and discarding them the second he got bored, leaving them often destroyed from mental abuse and emotional ties. From hearing these stories, I developed a fear of becoming simply a muse. I am a female presenting artist in a male dominated space and nothing scares me more than becoming someone’s muse and having my own work erased completely, becoming nothing more than an object of affection for a man who’s work will live in infamy for the wrong things. I came across an excerpt from a book from 1487 called the Malleus Maleficarum that is credited with starting the witch trials in the 1500s in Europe and later in America. The quote struck me as it’s perhaps the single most sexist passage I’ve ever read, describing women in all manners of horrible ways to punctuate the fact that the author himself was severely misogynist. I adapted pieces of it for the opening text of my essay to give it a satirical opening to compliment the seriousness of the subject. I formatted my lyrical essay into a poem because poetry in the medium I tend to be most comfortable with overall
2. Lyrical Essay Production
Our assignment for Digital Media was to produce the Lyrical Essay we wrote in English in audio form, complete with cover art, music and sound effects
My audio production used a number of different things. I used a variety of sound effects and music. The most important track, in my opinion, is the “Lolita Ya ya” from the 1962 adaptation of Vladimir Nabokov’s Lolita, directed by Stanley Kubrick. I was inspired by the novel and the mischaracterization of the novel to write the poem and make the album art because I felt that it encapsulated the spirit of what I wanted to convey. The album art features a version of Sue Lyon’s iconic poster, and the poem names the antagonist “Humbert”, which is the name the narrator gives himself in the novel. I’m genuinely very proud of it and it’s one of the project I’ve enjoyed the most this year.