Wallace Stevens’s Poetics of the Other
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Bülent Eken
Abstract
This article reveals a central yet hitherto unsuspected meditation in Wallace Stevens on the problem of the other person in relation to the concept of the other construed by Gilles Deleuze as the “expression of a possible world” (1990: 308). It demonstrates that, seen from this perspective, the figure of subjectivity appears to be a rhetorical means in the service of a poetics centered on the other. In readings of Stevens, it traces the way in which he thinks through the question of the other and detects two main forms in which this is registered in the poems: the other is either associated with ‘possibility’, an occasion of euphoric affects, or with the foreclosure of a more fundamental reality, an ‘outside’, of which the other is merely a phenomenal representative and which occasions poignant affects. The reading of Stevens’s late poem “Prologues to What Is Possible” shows that these two poles in relation to the other are juxtaposed in a paradigmatic manner.
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© 2017 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston
Artikel in diesem Heft
- Frontmatter
- Articles
- Pirates, Captives, and Conversions: Rereading British Stories of White Slavery in the Early Modern Mediterranean
- George Orwell’s Imperial Bestiary: Totemism, Animal Agency and Cross-Species Interaction in “Shooting an Elephant”, Burmese Days and “Marrakech”
- Enacting Authenticity: Peter Nichols’s Passion Play and Søren Kierkegaard’s Either/Or in Dialogue
- Wallace Stevens’s Poetics of the Other
- T. C. Boyle’s The Harder They Come: Violence in America
- ‘Sublime Oilscapes’: Literary Depictions of Landscapes Transformed by the Oil Industry
- Reviews
- Elena Seoane and Christina Suaréz-Gómez (eds.). World Englishes: New Theoretical and Methodological Considerations. Varieties of English Around the World G57. Amsterdam/Philadelphia, PA: Benjamins, 2016, 285 pp., € 95.00/$ 143.00.
- Carola Trips. English Syntax in Three Dimensions: History – Synchrony – Diachrony. Berlin/Boston, MA: De Gruyter Mouton, 2015, viii + 239 pp., € 29.95.
- Annina Seiler. The Scripting of the Germanic Languages: A Comparative Study of “Spelling Difficulties” in Old English, Old High German and Old Saxon. Medienwandel – Medienwechsel – Medienwissen 30. Zürich: Chronos, 2014, 268 pp., 77 figures, CHF 38.00/€ 34.00.
- Fran Colman. The Grammar of Names in Anglo-Saxon England: The Linguistics and Culture of the Old English Onomasticon. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014, xii + 310 pp., £ 75.00.
- Leonard Neidorf. Foreword by Gregory Nagy. The Transmission of Beowulf: Language, Culture, and Scribal Behavior. Myth and Poetics 2. Ithaca, NY/London: Cornell University Press, 2017, 221 pp., 8 illustrations, $ 55.00.
- Tamara Atkin and Francis Leneghan (eds.). The Psalms and Medieval English Literature: From the Conversion to the Reformation. Cambridge: Brewer, 2017, 362 pp., 18 illustr., £ 60.00.
- Aysha Pollnitz. Princely Education in Early Modern Britain. Cambridge Studies in Early Modern British History. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2015, xiv + 445 pp., £ 79.99/$ 125.00.
- Jan Alber. Unnatural Narrative: Impossible Worlds in Fiction and Drama. Frontiers of Narrative Series. Lincoln, NE: University of Nebraska Press, 2016, xi + 310 pp., $ 55.00.
- Patrick Parrinder. Utopian Literature and Science: From the Scientific Revolution to Brave New World and Beyond. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2015, ix + 222 pp., £ 55.00/$ 90.00.
- Thomas Girst. Art, Literature and the Japanese American Internment: On John Okada’s No-No Boy. American Culture 12. Frankfurt/Main: Peter Lang, 2015, 266 pp., 28 figures, € 58.91/£ 40.00/$ 64.95.
- Clemens Spahr. A Poetics of Global Solidarity: Modern American Poetry and Social Movements. Modern and Contemporary Poetry and Poetics. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2015, xiii + 255 pp., 5 illustr., $ 99.00.
- Katja Kurz. Narrating Contested Lives: The Aesthetics of Life Writing in Human Rights Campaigns. American Studies – A Monograph Series 252. Heidelberg: Universitätsverlag Winter, 2015, ii + 271 pp., € 48.00.
- Gabriele Dürbeck and Urte Stobbe (eds.). Ecocriticism: Eine Einführung. Böhlau Studienbücher. Köln: Böhlau, 2015, 315 pp., 3 illustr., € 19.99.
- Serenella Iovino. Ecocriticism and Italy: Ecology, Resistance, and Liberation. Environmental Cultures. London: Bloomsbury Academic Press, 2016, 184 pp., 12 illustr., £ 72.00.
- Books Received
Artikel in diesem Heft
- Frontmatter
- Articles
- Pirates, Captives, and Conversions: Rereading British Stories of White Slavery in the Early Modern Mediterranean
- George Orwell’s Imperial Bestiary: Totemism, Animal Agency and Cross-Species Interaction in “Shooting an Elephant”, Burmese Days and “Marrakech”
- Enacting Authenticity: Peter Nichols’s Passion Play and Søren Kierkegaard’s Either/Or in Dialogue
- Wallace Stevens’s Poetics of the Other
- T. C. Boyle’s The Harder They Come: Violence in America
- ‘Sublime Oilscapes’: Literary Depictions of Landscapes Transformed by the Oil Industry
- Reviews
- Elena Seoane and Christina Suaréz-Gómez (eds.). World Englishes: New Theoretical and Methodological Considerations. Varieties of English Around the World G57. Amsterdam/Philadelphia, PA: Benjamins, 2016, 285 pp., € 95.00/$ 143.00.
- Carola Trips. English Syntax in Three Dimensions: History – Synchrony – Diachrony. Berlin/Boston, MA: De Gruyter Mouton, 2015, viii + 239 pp., € 29.95.
- Annina Seiler. The Scripting of the Germanic Languages: A Comparative Study of “Spelling Difficulties” in Old English, Old High German and Old Saxon. Medienwandel – Medienwechsel – Medienwissen 30. Zürich: Chronos, 2014, 268 pp., 77 figures, CHF 38.00/€ 34.00.
- Fran Colman. The Grammar of Names in Anglo-Saxon England: The Linguistics and Culture of the Old English Onomasticon. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014, xii + 310 pp., £ 75.00.
- Leonard Neidorf. Foreword by Gregory Nagy. The Transmission of Beowulf: Language, Culture, and Scribal Behavior. Myth and Poetics 2. Ithaca, NY/London: Cornell University Press, 2017, 221 pp., 8 illustrations, $ 55.00.
- Tamara Atkin and Francis Leneghan (eds.). The Psalms and Medieval English Literature: From the Conversion to the Reformation. Cambridge: Brewer, 2017, 362 pp., 18 illustr., £ 60.00.
- Aysha Pollnitz. Princely Education in Early Modern Britain. Cambridge Studies in Early Modern British History. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2015, xiv + 445 pp., £ 79.99/$ 125.00.
- Jan Alber. Unnatural Narrative: Impossible Worlds in Fiction and Drama. Frontiers of Narrative Series. Lincoln, NE: University of Nebraska Press, 2016, xi + 310 pp., $ 55.00.
- Patrick Parrinder. Utopian Literature and Science: From the Scientific Revolution to Brave New World and Beyond. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2015, ix + 222 pp., £ 55.00/$ 90.00.
- Thomas Girst. Art, Literature and the Japanese American Internment: On John Okada’s No-No Boy. American Culture 12. Frankfurt/Main: Peter Lang, 2015, 266 pp., 28 figures, € 58.91/£ 40.00/$ 64.95.
- Clemens Spahr. A Poetics of Global Solidarity: Modern American Poetry and Social Movements. Modern and Contemporary Poetry and Poetics. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2015, xiii + 255 pp., 5 illustr., $ 99.00.
- Katja Kurz. Narrating Contested Lives: The Aesthetics of Life Writing in Human Rights Campaigns. American Studies – A Monograph Series 252. Heidelberg: Universitätsverlag Winter, 2015, ii + 271 pp., € 48.00.
- Gabriele Dürbeck and Urte Stobbe (eds.). Ecocriticism: Eine Einführung. Böhlau Studienbücher. Köln: Böhlau, 2015, 315 pp., 3 illustr., € 19.99.
- Serenella Iovino. Ecocriticism and Italy: Ecology, Resistance, and Liberation. Environmental Cultures. London: Bloomsbury Academic Press, 2016, 184 pp., 12 illustr., £ 72.00.
- Books Received
