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Neo-Surrealism within the Prose Poetry Tradition

Paul Hetherington and Cassandra Atherton

in Prose Poetry: An Introduction

This chapter assesses the American neo-surreal as an influential strand of prose poetry, adapting ideas that originated with the surrealists to challenge assumptions about how the world should be ... More

This chapter assesses the American neo-surreal as an influential strand of prose poetry, adapting ideas that originated with the surrealists to challenge assumptions about how the world should be understood, and prose-poetic narratives ought to be read. The term “neo-surrealism” does not have to be restrictive but may be used as a way of opening up an understanding of certain key features of prose poetry internationally. And while American prose poets are certainly not the first to experiment with surrealism, many contemporary American prose poets demonstrate a particular interest in absurdism and neo-surrealism. As a result, neo-surrealism is arguably best exemplified by American prose poets — in terms of the number of writers employing such techniques and the quality of neo-surrealistic works being written. Notwithstanding its contemporaneity, the neo-surrealistic strand of prose poetry maintains a clear — if sometimes lateral — connection to the strange and often dreamlike works produced by nineteenth-century French prose poets such as Charles Baudelaire and Arthur Rimbaud.Less

Epilogue

Morton D. Paley

in Apocalypse and Millenium in English Romantic Poetry

This epilogue discusses the discontinuation of the focus of English Romantic poetry on the topics of apocalypse and millennium. Attempts to explore the succession of apocalypse and millennium were ... More

This epilogue discusses the discontinuation of the focus of English Romantic poetry on the topics of apocalypse and millennium. Attempts to explore the succession of apocalypse and millennium were not repeated in later 19th century English poetry. This may be attributed to the possible abatement of the collective anxieties that had led to a wish for reassurance that millennium would follow apocalypse. The apocalyptic theme was then relegated to utopian and dystopian prose narratives.Less

Prose Narratives of Kings: Between ‘Old’ and ‘New’

Kumkum Chatterjee

in The Cultures of History in Early Modern India: Persianization and Mughal Culture in Bengal

This chapter focuses on a group of Bengali prose narratives composed during the first decade of the nineteenth century, tracing their historiographic substance and style. These narratives represented ... More

This chapter focuses on a group of Bengali prose narratives composed during the first decade of the nineteenth century, tracing their historiographic substance and style. These narratives represented accounts of past kings and their deeds — one of the most common topics in pre-modern historiography. It begins by examining the significance attached by scholars to the transition of a literary culture from verse to prose. It then considers whether the issues raised by this discussion are applicable to the region and the literary/historical culture studied here. It examines the history of prose-use in Bengal prior to the nineteenth century and the linguistic and literary influences which affected it. The third section suggests that Persian language and literary culture functioned as significant influences on Bengali prose, especially during the seventeenth and the eighteenth centuries. Finally, a cluster of prose narratives works in Bengali are discussed.Less

Yiddish Narrative

Jean Baumgarten

Jerold C. Frakes (ed.)

in Introduction to Old Yiddish Literature

Prose narrative forms an important component of Old Yiddish literature. These narratives are primarily maasious, a term which designates a variety of narrative forms, from exempla (hagiographical ... More

Prose narrative forms an important component of Old Yiddish literature. These narratives are primarily maasious, a term which designates a variety of narrative forms, from exempla (hagiographical stories) to parables and allegories (mesholim) drawn from the aggadic materials of the Talmud or midroshim. From the appearance of printed books in the sixteenth century up to the period of the Haskalah, so many narrative texts were published that this genre constitutes a substantial part of the original literature in the vernacular. These stories were quite popular with the Jewish reading audience during the Renaissance period. Some of the basic principles of Judaism could be inculcated in a pleasant and instructive form, bringing together humour, comedy, and a casual manner. Furthermore, these vernacular stories make explicit their positioning at the cultural crossroads where the Jewish tradition and world literature meet.Less

Of Time as a River: The Mill of Desire

Garrett Stewart

in Novel Violence: A Narratography of Victorian Fiction

This chapter examines the violence in George Eliot's novel The Mill on the Floss. It suggests that this novel stretches the rhythmic demands of empathy to new rhetorical lengths and Eliot's ... More

This chapter examines the violence in George Eliot's novel The Mill on the Floss. It suggests that this novel stretches the rhythmic demands of empathy to new rhetorical lengths and Eliot's narratives emerge as an unprecedented testing of the reader's disposition toward the ethical momentum of narrative prose itself. The violence of event in this work is heightened along the track of exuberant, even when brutally freighted, wording.Less

The Hebrew First Crusade Narratives: Time-Bound Objectives

Robert Chazan

in God, Humanity, and History: The Hebrew First Crusade Narratives

This chapter studies the Hebrew prose narratives that were written shortly after the calamity of 1096. These prose narratives were meant to address both time-bound and timeless concerns at the same ... More

This chapter studies the Hebrew prose narratives that were written shortly after the calamity of 1096. These prose narratives were meant to address both time-bound and timeless concerns at the same time. It also shows that the authors of these narratives believed that prose could be effectively used to build an explanatory rationale for the events. A close analysis of the Hebrew prose narratives reveals that the traditional emphasis placed on these three narratives as three related compositions is of limited utility. The chapter also considers the issues of theodicy and historiographic assumptions that concern God, humanity, and history.Less

Judah Al-Harizi

David Goldstein

in Hebrew Poems from Spain

This chapter assesses the poetry of Judah al-Harizi. Like Joseph Ibn Zabara, Judah al-Harizi’s fame depends mainly on his collection of rhymed prose narratives, known as ‘Tahkemoni’. He was born in ... More

This chapter assesses the poetry of Judah al-Harizi. Like Joseph Ibn Zabara, Judah al-Harizi’s fame depends mainly on his collection of rhymed prose narratives, known as ‘Tahkemoni’. He was born in Spain in the second half of the twelfth century, and the end of that century saw him living in Provence where he was engaged in the work of translation from Arabic into Hebrew, in which field he attained great eminence. He was a devoted follower of Maimonides, began a translation of his commentary to the Mishna, and completed a translation of his great philosophical work, ‘The Guide for the Perplexed’. In addition to his secular poetry, Judah al-Harizi also wrote poems expressing religious devotion to the Holy Land, on the pattern of those of Judah ha-Levi. The chapter then looks at two of his poems: A Secret Kept and The Lute Sounds.Less

Half-Envying: The Interested Reader and the Partial Marriage Plot

Catherine Nicholson

in Reading and Not Reading The Faerie Queene: Spenser and the Making of Literary Criticism

This chapter assesses the degree to which Edmund Spenser's The Faerie Queene not only responds to reading “characterologically” but solicits it, as an offering to and claim upon the reader whose ... More

This chapter assesses the degree to which Edmund Spenser's The Faerie Queene not only responds to reading “characterologically” but solicits it, as an offering to and claim upon the reader whose interest Spenser was most anxious to secure. The Faerie Queene is not a tightly plotted prose narrative, and its intended reader was no figment of Spenser's imagination. On the contrary, she was a living ruler on whose favor the poet's livelihood depended and to whom, on at least one occasion, he read parts of his uncompleted poem aloud. These well-known facts are related in nonobvious ways: Queen Elizabeth's engrossment in The Faerie Queene is the poem's motivating and sustaining fiction, as well as the scene of an imagined catastrophe it must labor to forestall. In claiming Elizabeth as inspiration and ideal reader, Spenser's poem participates in a collective fiction of the queen's willing self-subjection to her chastely devoted male subjects, a fiction whose seditious and erotic subtexts were at perpetual risk of contaminating the official narrative.Less

Devotions

Ramie Targoff

in John Donne, Body and Soul

This chapter analyzes the Devotions, a prose narrative written after Donne's recovery from what was probably typhoid fever during the autumn of 1623. Throughout this work, Donne struggles both to ... More

This chapter analyzes the Devotions, a prose narrative written after Donne's recovery from what was probably typhoid fever during the autumn of 1623. Throughout this work, Donne struggles both to accept his sickness as a message from God, and to effect a return to health in soul as well as in body. With the exception of his physicians, he seems to be entirely alone throughout the illness he recounts, and his only sustained dialogue is with God. The act of writing the Devotions was an attempt to possess or control what is otherwise outside of Donne's control. It was an effort to contain within his own script the otherwise terrifying uncertainty that surrounds the cycle of health, illness, and possible recovery.Less

Constructing Don Quixote

Manuel Duran and Fay R. Rogg

in Fighting Windmills: Encounters with Don Quixote

This chapter examines how Cervantes' Don Quixote offered new approaches to the art of storytelling and the craft of narrative prose. The discussions include how the novel became a self-referential ... More

This chapter examines how Cervantes' Don Quixote offered new approaches to the art of storytelling and the craft of narrative prose. The discussions include how the novel became a self-referential work of art; the separation of history from poetry; Cervantes as the true creator of the psychological novel; and his philosophical approach.Less