Aidan Wasley
- Published in print:
- 2011
- Published Online:
- October 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780691136790
- eISBN:
- 9781400836352
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Princeton University Press
- DOI:
- 10.23943/princeton/9780691136790.003.0005
- Subject:
- Literature, Criticism/Theory
This chapter discusses Auden's influence on Adrienne Rich. It argues that from her early emulation through her mature repudiation of his example, Auden's place in Rich's work and thought has ...
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This chapter discusses Auden's influence on Adrienne Rich. It argues that from her early emulation through her mature repudiation of his example, Auden's place in Rich's work and thought has persisted. As both an individual influence and as a representative of an entire range of poetic concerns which she has inherited and adapted, Auden comes to stand for poetic tradition itself—the tradition that gave her birth, and through and against which she has striven to define herself. For Rich, Auden sets the poetic terms—not always positively—out of which she constructs her own poetic identity. Like poetry itself, the figure of Auden and what he represents have been, throughout her career, ineluctable.Less
This chapter discusses Auden's influence on Adrienne Rich. It argues that from her early emulation through her mature repudiation of his example, Auden's place in Rich's work and thought has persisted. As both an individual influence and as a representative of an entire range of poetic concerns which she has inherited and adapted, Auden comes to stand for poetic tradition itself—the tradition that gave her birth, and through and against which she has striven to define herself. For Rich, Auden sets the poetic terms—not always positively—out of which she constructs her own poetic identity. Like poetry itself, the figure of Auden and what he represents have been, throughout her career, ineluctable.
Aidan Wasley
- Published in print:
- 2011
- Published Online:
- October 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780691136790
- eISBN:
- 9781400836352
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Princeton University Press
- DOI:
- 10.23943/princeton/9780691136790.001.0001
- Subject:
- Literature, Criticism/Theory
W. H. Auden's emigration from England to the United States in 1939 marked more than a turning point in his own life and work—it changed the course of American poetry itself. This book takes, for the ...
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W. H. Auden's emigration from England to the United States in 1939 marked more than a turning point in his own life and work—it changed the course of American poetry itself. This book takes, for the first time, the full measure of Auden's influence on American poetry. Combining a broad survey of Auden's midcentury U.S. cultural presence with an account of his dramatic impact on a wide range of younger American poets—from Allen Ginsberg to Sylvia Plath—the book offers a new history of postwar American poetry. For Auden, facing private crisis and global catastrophe, moving to the United States became, in the famous words of his first American poem, a new “way of happening.” But his redefinition of his work had a significance that was felt far beyond the pages of his own books. This book shows how Auden's signal role in the work and lives of an entire younger generation of American poets challenges conventional literary histories that place Auden outside the American poetic tradition. The book pays special attention to three of Auden's most distinguished American inheritors, presenting major new readings of James Merrill, John Ashbery, and Adrienne Rich. The result is a persuasive and compelling demonstration of a novel claim: In order to understand modern American poetry, we need to understand Auden's central place within it.Less
W. H. Auden's emigration from England to the United States in 1939 marked more than a turning point in his own life and work—it changed the course of American poetry itself. This book takes, for the first time, the full measure of Auden's influence on American poetry. Combining a broad survey of Auden's midcentury U.S. cultural presence with an account of his dramatic impact on a wide range of younger American poets—from Allen Ginsberg to Sylvia Plath—the book offers a new history of postwar American poetry. For Auden, facing private crisis and global catastrophe, moving to the United States became, in the famous words of his first American poem, a new “way of happening.” But his redefinition of his work had a significance that was felt far beyond the pages of his own books. This book shows how Auden's signal role in the work and lives of an entire younger generation of American poets challenges conventional literary histories that place Auden outside the American poetic tradition. The book pays special attention to three of Auden's most distinguished American inheritors, presenting major new readings of James Merrill, John Ashbery, and Adrienne Rich. The result is a persuasive and compelling demonstration of a novel claim: In order to understand modern American poetry, we need to understand Auden's central place within it.
Eric Eisner
- Published in print:
- 2019
- Published Online:
- May 2020
- ISBN:
- 9781786941817
- eISBN:
- 9781789623253
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Liverpool University Press
- DOI:
- 10.3828/liverpool/9781786941817.003.0011
- Subject:
- Literature, Poetry
This chapter discusses two crucial mid-twentieth-century constructions of negative capability, juxtaposing Harvard scholar Walter Jackson Bate’s widely influential humanistic take on Keats’s concept ...
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This chapter discusses two crucial mid-twentieth-century constructions of negative capability, juxtaposing Harvard scholar Walter Jackson Bate’s widely influential humanistic take on Keats’s concept with the way Black Mountain College poet Charles Olson enlists Keats, and negative capability specifically, to authorize his own postmodern poetics. For all their differences, the chapter shows, Bate and Olson’s constructions of Keats connect to similar responses to the perceived hyperspecialization and professionalization of mid-century intellectual life, responses articulated in part through shared intellectual sources. The chapter concludes with a reading of Adrienne Rich’s 1986 elegy ‘In Memoriam: D.K.’ as a poem that tests and critiques the idea of negative capability as masculinized ‘virtue’ advanced by both Bate and Olson.Less
This chapter discusses two crucial mid-twentieth-century constructions of negative capability, juxtaposing Harvard scholar Walter Jackson Bate’s widely influential humanistic take on Keats’s concept with the way Black Mountain College poet Charles Olson enlists Keats, and negative capability specifically, to authorize his own postmodern poetics. For all their differences, the chapter shows, Bate and Olson’s constructions of Keats connect to similar responses to the perceived hyperspecialization and professionalization of mid-century intellectual life, responses articulated in part through shared intellectual sources. The chapter concludes with a reading of Adrienne Rich’s 1986 elegy ‘In Memoriam: D.K.’ as a poem that tests and critiques the idea of negative capability as masculinized ‘virtue’ advanced by both Bate and Olson.
David Johnson
- Published in print:
- 1996
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780198183150
- eISBN:
- 9780191673955
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198183150.003.0007
- Subject:
- Literature, Shakespeare Studies, Film, Media, and Cultural Studies
This chapter deals with Shakespeare criticism and radical critical theory and explores how this radical theory has travelled to South Africa in the last 25 years. It is based on the conviction that ...
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This chapter deals with Shakespeare criticism and radical critical theory and explores how this radical theory has travelled to South Africa in the last 25 years. It is based on the conviction that this criticism represents an interesting departure from previous formulations of English literature's social function. Two key essays from U.S.-based academics have been particularly influential. The first is Edward Said's ‘Traveling Theory’ and the second is Adrienne Rich's ‘Notes toward a Politics of Location’. The chapter also introduces an analysis associated with Roland Barthes's famous essay ‘The Death of the Author’. Much of the credit for adding scare quotes to the name ‘Shakespeare’ can be given to Barthes's essay, with William Shakespeare, the most authorised of all authors, placed under fresh critical scrutiny in the light of Barthe's attempted murder.Less
This chapter deals with Shakespeare criticism and radical critical theory and explores how this radical theory has travelled to South Africa in the last 25 years. It is based on the conviction that this criticism represents an interesting departure from previous formulations of English literature's social function. Two key essays from U.S.-based academics have been particularly influential. The first is Edward Said's ‘Traveling Theory’ and the second is Adrienne Rich's ‘Notes toward a Politics of Location’. The chapter also introduces an analysis associated with Roland Barthes's famous essay ‘The Death of the Author’. Much of the credit for adding scare quotes to the name ‘Shakespeare’ can be given to Barthes's essay, with William Shakespeare, the most authorised of all authors, placed under fresh critical scrutiny in the light of Barthe's attempted murder.
Harry Frankfurt
- Published in print:
- 2009
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780195327939
- eISBN:
- 9780199852444
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195327939.003.0003
- Subject:
- Philosophy, Moral Philosophy
This chapter opens with a claim that the harm that lies do results from their interference with one's efforts to understand things as they truly are. Lies thrust one into an imaginary world that one ...
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This chapter opens with a claim that the harm that lies do results from their interference with one's efforts to understand things as they truly are. Lies thrust one into an imaginary world that one cannot live in or rely on. The chapter goes on to discuss Kant's and Montaigne's claim that lies undermine human society, arguing that Kant and Montaigne have gone too far: although it is true that lies can tear the social fabric apart, they can also knit it together. The discussion develops a personal take on the harm of the lie with a discussion of the poet Adrienne Rich. For Rich, the liar puts himself in a place of terrible loneliness: by hiding his mind from others, he perilously removes himself from human society.Less
This chapter opens with a claim that the harm that lies do results from their interference with one's efforts to understand things as they truly are. Lies thrust one into an imaginary world that one cannot live in or rely on. The chapter goes on to discuss Kant's and Montaigne's claim that lies undermine human society, arguing that Kant and Montaigne have gone too far: although it is true that lies can tear the social fabric apart, they can also knit it together. The discussion develops a personal take on the harm of the lie with a discussion of the poet Adrienne Rich. For Rich, the liar puts himself in a place of terrible loneliness: by hiding his mind from others, he perilously removes himself from human society.
Roger Pearson
- Published in print:
- 2016
- Published Online:
- May 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780198754473
- eISBN:
- 9780191816130
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198754473.003.0002
- Subject:
- Literature, 19th-century Literature and Romanticism, Poetry
This chapter introduces the figure of the poet as lawgiver by focusing initially on Shelley’s famous definition of poets as ‘unacknowledged legislators of the World’ in his Defence of Poetry (1821). ...
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This chapter introduces the figure of the poet as lawgiver by focusing initially on Shelley’s famous definition of poets as ‘unacknowledged legislators of the World’ in his Defence of Poetry (1821). Following discussion of Thomas Love Peacock’s essay on ‘The Four Ages of Poetry’, to which the Defence is a reply, the chapter analyses Shelley’s arguments in detail. It then looks back to Plato’s views on the public role of the poet, especially in his Republic and the Laws, and forward to Adrienne Rich’s account of poets as ‘unacknowledged legislators’ within a twenty-first-century context. This is followed by discussion of the fundamental tension—already present in the ancient Greek concept of the nomos and implicit in the ambiguity of the English term ‘lawgiver’—between the poet as Moses, who receives and communicates the Law, and the poet as Orpheus, who creates order and ‘lawfulness’.Less
This chapter introduces the figure of the poet as lawgiver by focusing initially on Shelley’s famous definition of poets as ‘unacknowledged legislators of the World’ in his Defence of Poetry (1821). Following discussion of Thomas Love Peacock’s essay on ‘The Four Ages of Poetry’, to which the Defence is a reply, the chapter analyses Shelley’s arguments in detail. It then looks back to Plato’s views on the public role of the poet, especially in his Republic and the Laws, and forward to Adrienne Rich’s account of poets as ‘unacknowledged legislators’ within a twenty-first-century context. This is followed by discussion of the fundamental tension—already present in the ancient Greek concept of the nomos and implicit in the ambiguity of the English term ‘lawgiver’—between the poet as Moses, who receives and communicates the Law, and the poet as Orpheus, who creates order and ‘lawfulness’.
