Chapters in this book

1. Frontmatter i
2. Contents ix
3. Introduction: Lyric Substance and Social Being 1
4. 1. The Spectacle of Obscurity 14
5. 2. Riddlecraft 34
6. 3. Lost Laboratories of the Sphinx 62
7. 4. Lyric Monadologies 98
8. 5. Infidel Lyric: The Rhymes of the Canting Crew 137
9. 6. Flash Crib: A Genealogy of Modern Nightlife 161
10. 7. Mother Goose and Mallarmé 216
11. Afterword: Social Inversion, Kitsch, and the Art of Disappearing 231
12. Index 237