1 Framing Modern Subjectivity: Poetry and Experience
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Charles Altieri
Abstract
This essay has two basic purposes. It wants to explain why modernist poets and many twentieth-century philosophers rejected Romantic versions of expressive subjectivity which stressed the direct presentation of feelings as the best way poetry could connect with other people’s experience. And it shows how these poets extend the philosophers’ arguments by working out concrete ways of stressing how language and constructive strategies could render experience directly by engaging audiences in the processes of its construction. Examples are poems by William Carlos Williams, Mina Loy, and T. S. Eliot.
Abstract
This essay has two basic purposes. It wants to explain why modernist poets and many twentieth-century philosophers rejected Romantic versions of expressive subjectivity which stressed the direct presentation of feelings as the best way poetry could connect with other people’s experience. And it shows how these poets extend the philosophers’ arguments by working out concrete ways of stressing how language and constructive strategies could render experience directly by engaging audiences in the processes of its construction. Examples are poems by William Carlos Williams, Mina Loy, and T. S. Eliot.
Kapitel in diesem Buch
- Frontmatter I
- Editors’ Preface V
- Contents VII
- Introduction XI
-
Part I: How Poetry Makes Things Happen
- 1 Framing Modern Subjectivity: Poetry and Experience 1
- 2 Poetry, Politics, and the Politics of Poetry: How Poems Interfere 29
- 3 Tuning in on Sister Arts: Poetry and Music 53
- 4 Poetry and Modes of Humor 73
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Part II: American Poetry and Poetics Up Close: From the Puritans to Postmodernity and Beyond
- 5 Poetry and the Puritan Ethic: Anne Bradstreet, Samuel Danforth, Edward Taylor 97
- 6 Neoclassicism and Nation-Building: The Poetry of Phillis Wheatley and Philip Freneau 113
- 7 The Price of Poetry: Horton, Larcom, Longfellow, Lowell, Holmes 131
- 8 Romanticism, Transcendentalism, Environmentalism: The Ecological Poetics of Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry David Thoreau, and Margaret Fuller 151
- 9 Mind, Body, and Consciousness: The Poetry of Edgar Allan Poe and Emily Dickinson 173
- 10 Poetry at War: Herman Melville, Walt Whitman, and Stephen Crane 195
- 11 Modern(ist) American Poetry 215
- 12 Modernist Materialities: Objects in Poetry 237
- 13 Poet-Anthropologists and Boasian “Culture”: Edward Sapir, Ruth Benedict, Margaret Mead 259
- 14 The Poet-Critics, Regionalism, and the Rise of Formalism 279
- 15 Unconventionally Conventional: Elizabeth Bishop and the Modernization of Traditional Forms 301
- 16 Poetic Modes of Early Postmodernism: Black Mountain School, Beat Movement, New York School 317
- 17 Poetry as Confession? The Cases of Anne Sexton, W. D. Snodgrass, and Sylvia Plath 343
- 18 African American Poetry: From the Harlem Renaissance to the Black Arts Movement and Beyond 359
- 19 Poetry as Feminist Critique 375
- 20 Words in Performance: The Art and Poetics of Language Poetry 395
- 21 How Poetry Matters Now 417
- Name Index 437
- Subject Index 451
- List of Contributors 463
Kapitel in diesem Buch
- Frontmatter I
- Editors’ Preface V
- Contents VII
- Introduction XI
-
Part I: How Poetry Makes Things Happen
- 1 Framing Modern Subjectivity: Poetry and Experience 1
- 2 Poetry, Politics, and the Politics of Poetry: How Poems Interfere 29
- 3 Tuning in on Sister Arts: Poetry and Music 53
- 4 Poetry and Modes of Humor 73
-
Part II: American Poetry and Poetics Up Close: From the Puritans to Postmodernity and Beyond
- 5 Poetry and the Puritan Ethic: Anne Bradstreet, Samuel Danforth, Edward Taylor 97
- 6 Neoclassicism and Nation-Building: The Poetry of Phillis Wheatley and Philip Freneau 113
- 7 The Price of Poetry: Horton, Larcom, Longfellow, Lowell, Holmes 131
- 8 Romanticism, Transcendentalism, Environmentalism: The Ecological Poetics of Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry David Thoreau, and Margaret Fuller 151
- 9 Mind, Body, and Consciousness: The Poetry of Edgar Allan Poe and Emily Dickinson 173
- 10 Poetry at War: Herman Melville, Walt Whitman, and Stephen Crane 195
- 11 Modern(ist) American Poetry 215
- 12 Modernist Materialities: Objects in Poetry 237
- 13 Poet-Anthropologists and Boasian “Culture”: Edward Sapir, Ruth Benedict, Margaret Mead 259
- 14 The Poet-Critics, Regionalism, and the Rise of Formalism 279
- 15 Unconventionally Conventional: Elizabeth Bishop and the Modernization of Traditional Forms 301
- 16 Poetic Modes of Early Postmodernism: Black Mountain School, Beat Movement, New York School 317
- 17 Poetry as Confession? The Cases of Anne Sexton, W. D. Snodgrass, and Sylvia Plath 343
- 18 African American Poetry: From the Harlem Renaissance to the Black Arts Movement and Beyond 359
- 19 Poetry as Feminist Critique 375
- 20 Words in Performance: The Art and Poetics of Language Poetry 395
- 21 How Poetry Matters Now 417
- Name Index 437
- Subject Index 451
- List of Contributors 463
