{{Short description|1992 book-length poem by Alice Notley}} {{italic title}} '''''The Descent of Alette''''' is a 1992 book-length poem by the American poet [[Alice Notley]]. The poem has been seen as offering a feminist critique of the genre of [[epic poetry]].<ref name="Diggory2009">{{cite book|author=Terence Diggory|title=Encyclopedia of the New York School Poets|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Mgsgw2xe-F0C&pg=PT152|year=2009|publisher=Infobase Publishing|isbn=978-1-4381-1905-2|pages=152–}}</ref><ref name="Haralson2014">{{cite book|author=Eric L. Haralson|title=Encyclopedia of American Poetry: The Twentieth Century|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=noCrAgAAQBAJ&pg=PA514|date=21 January 2014|publisher=Routledge|isbn=978-1-317-76322-2|pages=514–}}</ref>
The poem is notable for Notley's extensive use of [[quotation marks]] throughout, which she has described as part of her attempt to reclaim the narrative function.<ref name="Notley1996">{{cite book|author=Alice Notley|title=The Descent of Alette|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=0ULcKH8P6lUC|date=1 April 1996|publisher=Penguin Publishing Group|isbn=978-1-4406-2143-7}}</ref>
The title is an acknowledgement by Notley of the ancient Sumerian poem "[[Inanna#Descent into the underworld|The Descent of Inanna]]", which also features a female protagonist. The journey of the protagonist is related in the [[first-person narrative]], with their name only revealed to themselves towards the end of the piece.<ref name="Diggory2009"/>
The 'tyrant', a male figure who is "responsible for her amnesia, for war, and the literal suppression underground of all forms of authentic life", according to Terence Diggory in the ''Encyclopedia of the New York School Poets,'' is killed by the narrator at the end of the poem.<ref name="Diggory2009"/>
The narrator descends into an underground that represents life rather than death in an inversion of the traditional epic narrative. The levels of the underground through which the protagonist descends are reminiscent of specific scenes in late 1980s New York City; including a subway network populated by homeless people and the 1988 squatters occupation of [[Tompkins Square Park]] that was removed by police.<ref name="Diggory2009"/>
Notley read ''The Descent of Alette'' in its entirety over two nights at [[The Lab (organization)|The Lab]] in [[San Francisco]] on November 14 and 15, 2016.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.thelab.org/projects/2016/10/20/alice-notley-the-descent-of-alette|title=Alice Notley: The Descent of Alette|website=The Lab|accessdate=April 21, 2019}}</ref>
==References== {{Reflist}} *{{cite book|author=Alice Notley|title=The Descent of Alette|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=0ULcKH8P6lUC|date=1 April 1996|publisher=Penguin Publishing Group|isbn=978-1-4406-2143-7}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Descent of Alette}} [[Category:1992 books]] [[Category:1992 poems]] [[Category:Epic poems in English]] [[Category:Feminist literature]] [[Category:Penguin Books books]]