%0 Journal Article
%T Journey to the Land of No Return: Alice  Notley¡¯s The Descent of Alette and the  Sumerian ¡°Descent of Inanna¡±
%A Kurt Cline
%J Advances in Literary Study
%P 89-93
%@ 2327-4050
%D 2015
%I Scientific Research Publishing
%R 10.4236/als.2015.33014
%X The shaman¡¯s song is reflected in epical literature in the theme of the Otherworldly Journey. As recorded by ethnologists, the shaman¡¯s song, a record of as well as engagement with such a journey, summons up a bizarre dreamscape populated by fantastic beings, and engages with a specialized poetics employing linguistic paradox, trance-inducing rhythms, and nonsense words¡ªthese last considered by shamans to be a ¡°secret language.¡± Alice Notley¡¯s contemporary descent myth The Descent of Alette has strong ties to the ancient Sumerian Descent of Inanna as well as to the Gnostic myth of Sophia¡¯s descent into matter to affect the redemption of humankind. I show Inanna¡¯s connection to shamanic praxis and Gnostic mythology, and read Alette¡¯s journey as a crisis vision, in order to argue for the existence of a shamanic poetics, a special way of using language as a healing medium and vehicle of myth. Notley¡¯s post-modern epic placed alongside the extremely ancient Inanna myth-cycle reveals the shaman¡¯s perennial theme of the Otherworldly Journey ever reconfigured according to the artist/healer¡¯s relationship to a specific culture, and that culture¡¯s relationship to the shamanic paradigm.
%K Contemporary Poetry and Poetics
%K Ancient Epic Poetry
%K American Literature
%K Sumerian Myth
%K Gnosticism
%U http://www.scirp.org/journal/PaperInformation.aspx?PaperID=57924