Essay Questions

In what ways is The Argonauts a work of 'autotheory'? In what ways is it autobiographical? Is there a true distinction, and if so, what is it?

Maggie Nelson is celebrated for her deeply personal explorations of universal themes like gender, love, sexuality, art, and family. In many ways, The Argonauts is a prime example of Nelson's literary style: it is familiar, intimate and expository, while at the same time being deeply philosophical. Nelson balances her personal experiences with critical theory, citing many different authors who she then uses to shed light on her own life. She critiques her thoughts and experiences, as well as those of her friends and loved ones, but she also offers herself to be judged by the reader.

Her writing is bold and poetic—she avoids listing important dates (unless truly remarkable) and even names, making her work less autobiographical and more self-reflective. However, The Argonauts spans a concrete timeframe in the author's life, detailing many (if not all) of the most important events that occurred during this period. Nelson resists classical descriptions of her life in favor of a style reminiscent of long-form essays. Nelson actively refutes static labels in her writing, and in this way, The Argonauts resists being genre-fied entirely.

How do the many quotations from other thinkers add to or subtract from Nelson's prose in The Argonauts?

Nelson's frequent use of quotations sheds light not only on the ideas she strives to express in her writing but also on her own thought process. She does not pretend to have all original thoughts, and instead uses the sources she finds most compelling to drive an even more complex and rich narrative.

The reader has the potential to learn more about Nelson from these quotations, but they can sometimes be distracting and hard to disentangle from Nelson's own thoughts.

How does The Argonauts challenge traditional notions of the 'family unit'?

Maggie Nelson's family in The Argonauts is anything but typical. At the same time, the family operates in a single household, working together to overcome both societal challenges as well as personal ones. While the gender identities and sexual orientations of Nelson's family certainly challenge the status quo, in the end, her family operates with love and compassion in the way that societal norms about 'the family' often operate.

Nelson's family ostensibly challenges the norm, but also conforms—in a non-pejorative sense—to several traditional (and healthy) perceptions of families that coexist out of love.

What does Nelson's portrayal of her relationship with her partner, Harry Dodge, tell us about personal intimacy and writing?

Nelson does not shy away from recounting her lived experiences with Harry Dodge in The Argonauts. She explores everything from their sexual history to their emotional and intellectual moments of disconnect, cataloging and analyzing them with both personal compassion and intellectual critique. In this way, Nelson demonstrates the challenges and power that accompany personal writing.

She likewise does not shy away from documenting the difficulty that the book itself brought upon her relationship, cataloging the conversations she had with Harry throughout her writing process about how he would be portrayed. She does not share every intimate detail, of course, but she shares enough to demonstrate her love for Harry and the growth of their relationship.