eternal return of the gothic: Anne Bannerman's "Prophetess of the oracle of seam"
Kimberly Kundrotas
University of West Florida,
Master of Arts (MA), University of West Florida
2019
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Abstract
Anne Bannerman's "The Prophetess of the Oracle of Seäm" has not been studied as thoroughly as her most well-known poem, "The Dark Ladie." Indeed, none of the critical work on Bannerman to this point has focused exclusively on "Prophetess," the second poem in Bannerman's critically-maligned Tales of Superstition and Chivalry. This paper offers a standalone study of Bannerman's "Prophetess," analyzing the poem as an exemplar of Deleuzian eternal return. More specifically, it focuses on the manner in which "Prophetess" enacts two key Deleuzian ideas, repetition and fundamental encounter, thereby opening up the possibility of a uniquely Gothic epistemology that problematizes the Enlightenment insistence on clarity and revelation.