Re-memory and the self-fragmentation of the dying subject in Max Ritvo's Four Reincarnations

This paper discusses Four Reincarnations by Max Ritvo as a poem of death, memory, and disintegration of self under terminal illness. The research is placed in the framework of the theory of trauma, the philosophy of illness and memory studies and offers an interdisciplinary approach to the interpretation of how the work by Ritvo reinvents identity in crisis states. Trauma theory sheds light on the recursivity and fractured quality of his voice, in which traumatic experiences reappear in fragmented ways. The philosophy of illness emphasises the intrusion and vulnerability of the body that explains why Ritvo makes pain and decay disruptive and transformative. Memory studies and concept of narrative identity, position the poems as recursive interactions with the past which disrupt linear time but facilitate the ongoing reorganization of self. Close reading reveals that the article uses reincarnation, memory looping, and self-splitting as poetic devices that both dissolve and resist. It is argued that Ritvo makes dying a poetics of survival and creative reconstruction, in which fragmentation itself becomes a survival strategy. The article is an addition to the modern literature on illness and literature, which introduces the work by Ritvo as an influential intervention in the trauma, mortality and power of art to recreate identity discourses.