Pub Date : 2023-11-29DOI: 10.1353/abr.2023.a913413
Nigel Nicholson
<span><span>In lieu of</span> an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:</span> <p> <ul> <li><!-- html_title --> Philology No More?<span>Latin and Greek on the Sidelines</span> <!-- /html_title --></li> <li> Nigel Nicholson (bio) </li> </ul> <p>No one would raise an eyebrow if an undergraduate philosophy major at an American university studied Hegel, Kant, or de Beauvoir without knowing German or French. Nor would anyone raise an eyebrow if an undergraduate history major studied the Russian Revolution without Russian, or New Spain without Spanish—let alone Nahuatl or indeed Latin—even if this work constituted a senior capstone project. This is not a question of resources; it is true at the wealthiest schools. The simple fact is that, at the undergraduate level, mastery of the relevant languages has long ceased to be considered integral to history or philosophy.</p> <p>In coming years I suspect Classics will go the same way: the discipline will increasingly define studying its materials without command of Latin or Greek as the norm, and while some teaching of the languages will be provided by better-resourced institutions, language study will not just be peripheral in undergraduate education, but be accepted as peripheral, and its absence will not be understood as a failure or a loss.</p> <p>Classics has long been centered around language. Until 2013 the North American professional association of classicists, which was founded in 1869, was known as the American Philological Association. Philology has a range of meanings, but all stress the study of words, whether texts or—especially in Britain—languages themselves. At Reed College, where I teach, until recently we required a year of advanced work in one language and a year of at least introductory work in the other. My undergraduate degree, at Oxford, was centered around large swaths of Greek and Latin, although it was impressed upon us that our reading lists had been considerably reduced from what confronted previous generations. In American universities Classics departments are usually grouped with modern language departments, and in many institutions, historians of ancient Greece and Rome find their home in these Classics departments, not in history departments, and often teach Latin or Greek language classes. I know nowhere where this is true for the modern languages. Historians of France and Spain hold appointments in history departments, and do not teach the languages. <strong>[End Page 51]</strong></p> <p>Control of language—language in general, rather than just Latin or Greek—has long been a central part of the mythology of Classics. Certainly, the study of Latin will teach you grammar and syntax, and enlarge your English vocabulary, but in my youth there was also a clear sense that such control was a key to power and influence. One of the most popular sitcoms in 1980s Britain, the BBC's <em>Yes, Minister</em>, revolved around the interactions of Jim Hacker, the Minister for Admi
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Pub Date : 2023-11-29DOI: 10.1353/abr.2023.a913410
Paul Allen Miller
<span><span>In lieu of</span> an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:</span> <p> <ul> <li><!-- html_title --> Toward a Comparative Classics <!-- /html_title --></li> <li> Paul Allen Miller (bio) </li> </ul> <p>Last March I found myself in the Sultanate of Oman preparing to give a commencement address at the National University of Science and Technology. I had flown in a few days earlier to recover from the jet lag, and I decided to take advantage of my time to leave the bustling, modern city of Muscat and journey to the ancient capitol of Nizwa in the interior. Historically, Oman was known as Oman <em>and</em> Muscat because it had two centers of power. Muscat was on the coast and was ruled by the Sultan. It faced outward toward India and Africa and is thought to have been the original home of Sinbad the Sailor. Nizwa in the interior was ruled by the Imam. It was a center of Islamic learning and home of the Ibadi sect, which claims to be the oldest form of Islam, predating the Shia/Sunni split. There are many beautiful things to see in Nizwa and its environs, including its famous goat and camel souk, but the most striking thing I saw was the Shawadhna Mosque, first built in the seventh century, shortly after the Prophet had sent a letter in 630 asking the inhabitants to convert, which they did immediately and without coercion. The mosque is a simple structure without minarets or a dome, made of plaster and mud brick.</p> <p>I stood before it and I considered the young people I would address the next day, young men and women (more women than men), engineers, doctors, and pharmacists, who were not only ambitious soon-to-be professionals but also committed to the development of Oman. Beneath their caps and gowns they would wear traditional dress. The young women would have their hair covered. The ceremony would open with a prayer and a recitation of the Qur'an, as do all significant events in Oman. And as I stood there, I asked myself, if I were one of these young women, modern, well educated and yet traditional, what could it possibly mean to be Omani and not be Islamic? How could Islam, even if one were secular, not be fundamental to your identity, your aesthetic, your language, the structure of your dreams? How could forsaking that identity not mean becoming Western and consumerist, adopting the culture of the powers that had sought to colonize you, surrendering what made you you? <strong>[End Page 38]</strong></p> <p>Oman, in this regard, is not unique. It is part of a larger Islamic culture that has many regional and sectarian variations, that includes both the Arab and the Persian world, that intersects with Western classical culture in various ways, from the Islamic conquests to the great Muslim scholars, who preserved and commented upon Aristotle, to the mathematicians in Baghdad who built on the studies of the Pythagoreans and their successors. There is a complex, multi-layered cultural world here that intersects with our own b
为了代替摘要，这里有一个简短的内容摘录:走向比较经典保罗·艾伦·米勒(Paul Allen Miller)(自传)去年三月，我发现自己在阿曼苏丹国准备在国家科技大学发表毕业典礼演讲。几天前，我乘飞机来恢复时差，我决定利用这段时间离开熙熙攘攘的现代化城市马斯喀特，前往内陆的古都尼兹瓦。历史上，阿曼被称为阿曼和马斯喀特，因为它有两个权力中心。马斯喀特位于海岸，由苏丹统治。它面向印度和非洲，被认为是水手辛巴达的故乡。内陆的尼兹瓦由伊玛目统治。它是伊斯兰学习的中心，也是伊巴迪教派的故乡，伊巴迪教派声称是伊斯兰教最古老的形式，早于什叶派和逊尼派的分裂。尼兹瓦及其周边地区有许多美丽的东西可看，包括著名的山羊和骆驼集市，但我看到的最引人注目的是沙瓦德那清真寺，它始建于7世纪，在先知于630年致信要求居民皈依伊斯兰后不久，他们立即皈依了，没有任何强迫。这座清真寺结构简单，没有宣礼塔，也没有圆顶，由石膏和泥砖建成。我站在讲台前，思考着我第二天要演讲的年轻人，年轻的男人和女人(女性比男性多)，工程师、医生和药剂师，他们不仅雄心勃勃，即将成为专业人士，而且致力于阿曼的发展。在他们的帽子和长袍下面，他们会穿着传统的服装。年轻女子会把头发包起来。仪式将以祈祷和背诵《古兰经》开始，阿曼的所有重大活动都是如此。我站在那里，我问自己，如果我是这些年轻女性中的一员，现代，受过良好教育，但又很传统，作为阿曼人而不是伊斯兰教徒可能意味着什么?伊斯兰教，即使是世俗的，怎么可能不是你的身份、你的审美、你的语言、你的梦想结构的基础呢?放弃这种身份怎么可能不意味着成为西方和消费主义者，接受那些试图殖民你的大国的文化，放弃让你成为你的东西呢?在这方面，阿曼并不是唯一的。它是一个更大的伊斯兰文化的一部分，这个文化有许多地区和宗派的变化，包括阿拉伯和波斯世界，它以各种方式与西方古典文化交叉，从伊斯兰的征服到伟大的穆斯林学者，他们保存并评论了亚里士多德，再到巴格达的数学家，他们在毕达哥拉斯学派及其后继者的研究基础上建立起来。这里有一个复杂的、多层次的文化世界，它与我们自己的文化世界相交，但却不想成为我们的文化世界。它有自己的诗歌、哲学和精神信仰传统。这一传统构成了数百万人的身份和假设的事实，就像希腊和罗马的传统构成了我们自己的身份和假设的事实一样。当然，世界并不是简单地划分为单一的东方和西方，当然也不能用“文明冲突”这样粗俗的东西来描述它。然而，当我在另一所大学的一位古典文学同事告诉她的学生，西方只不过是指南针上的一个基点时，我不得不畏缩起来。不是因为我担心我们的传统会退化。大多数欧洲人和美国人从柏拉图、亚里士多德、西塞罗和奥维德那里继承来的指导假设，他们通常不知道，关于共和意味着什么，我们如何定义自由，我们如何定义民主，我们如何理解认知主体，以及我们如何想象恋爱，无论她承认与否，这些假设都会继续下去。她和我都杀不了侯默，就算我们想杀他。我之所以畏缩，是因为我没有认识到这些深层结构传统、这些传播途径和接受途径的突出性和重要性……
{"title":"Toward a Comparative Classics","authors":"Paul Allen Miller","doi":"10.1353/abr.2023.a913410","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/abr.2023.a913410","url":null,"abstract":"<span><span>In lieu of</span> an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:</span>\u0000<p> <ul> <li><!-- html_title --> Toward a Comparative Classics <!-- /html_title --></li> <li> Paul Allen Miller (bio) </li> </ul> <p>Last March I found myself in the Sultanate of Oman preparing to give a commencement address at the National University of Science and Technology. I had flown in a few days earlier to recover from the jet lag, and I decided to take advantage of my time to leave the bustling, modern city of Muscat and journey to the ancient capitol of Nizwa in the interior. Historically, Oman was known as Oman <em>and</em> Muscat because it had two centers of power. Muscat was on the coast and was ruled by the Sultan. It faced outward toward India and Africa and is thought to have been the original home of Sinbad the Sailor. Nizwa in the interior was ruled by the Imam. It was a center of Islamic learning and home of the Ibadi sect, which claims to be the oldest form of Islam, predating the Shia/Sunni split. There are many beautiful things to see in Nizwa and its environs, including its famous goat and camel souk, but the most striking thing I saw was the Shawadhna Mosque, first built in the seventh century, shortly after the Prophet had sent a letter in 630 asking the inhabitants to convert, which they did immediately and without coercion. The mosque is a simple structure without minarets or a dome, made of plaster and mud brick.</p> <p>I stood before it and I considered the young people I would address the next day, young men and women (more women than men), engineers, doctors, and pharmacists, who were not only ambitious soon-to-be professionals but also committed to the development of Oman. Beneath their caps and gowns they would wear traditional dress. The young women would have their hair covered. The ceremony would open with a prayer and a recitation of the Qur'an, as do all significant events in Oman. And as I stood there, I asked myself, if I were one of these young women, modern, well educated and yet traditional, what could it possibly mean to be Omani and not be Islamic? How could Islam, even if one were secular, not be fundamental to your identity, your aesthetic, your language, the structure of your dreams? How could forsaking that identity not mean becoming Western and consumerist, adopting the culture of the powers that had sought to colonize you, surrendering what made you you? <strong>[End Page 38]</strong></p> <p>Oman, in this regard, is not unique. It is part of a larger Islamic culture that has many regional and sectarian variations, that includes both the Arab and the Persian world, that intersects with Western classical culture in various ways, from the Islamic conquests to the great Muslim scholars, who preserved and commented upon Aristotle, to the mathematicians in Baghdad who built on the studies of the Pythagoreans and their successors. There is a complex, multi-layered cultural world here that intersects with our own b","PeriodicalId":41337,"journal":{"name":"AMERICAN BOOK REVIEW","volume":"18 3","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.0,"publicationDate":"2023-11-29","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"138526941","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-11-29DOI: 10.1353/abr.2023.a913430
Julie Mellby
<span><span>In lieu of</span> an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:</span> <p> <span>Reviewed by:</span> <ul> <li><!-- html_title --> <em>The Collected Works of Kathleen Tankersley Young</em> ed. by Erik La Prade and Joshua Rothes <!-- /html_title --></li> <li> Julie Mellby (bio) </li> </ul> <em><small>the collected works of kathleen tankersley young</small></em><br/> Edited by Erik La Prade and Joshua Rothes<br/> Sublunary Editions<br/> https://sublunaryeditions.com/products/the-collected-works-kathleen-tankersley-young<br/> 248 pages; Print, $22.00 <p>On the last day of 1933, the <em>New York Times</em> poetry critic Eda Lou Walton reviewed a series of pamphlets issued by Modern Editions Press. "These pamphlets represent the poets who are experimenting with new forms and whose eyes are fixed upon the contemporary scene," she began. Several of the eight poets needed introductions and context for the reading public to appreciate her commentary on their work, but of the recently deceased Kathleen Tankersley Young (1902–33) she wrote, "Young is, on the other hand, fairly well known, and her poem of dream imagery is fairly characteristic of her work."</p> <p>Thanks to <em>The Collected Works of Kathleen Tankersley Young</em>, we now know that Walton's assessment was far from accurate. The enigmatic Young lived and died mysteriously, leaving those who thought they knew her, or knew her work, misguided at best and at times deliberately fooled. In less than seven short years, from the date of her first published poem to her untimely death (officially suicide by Lysol poisoning), Young's writing fluctuated from rhyming couplets to typographically inventive free verse, bravely charting erotic dreamscapes and desolate realities, published in some of the most influential academic and bohemian journals of her day. And then she was gone and the world moved on.</p> <p>Editors Erik La Prade and Joshua Rothes have succeeded in gathering 154 published and unpublished works (primarily poetry), and while they concede <strong>[End Page 133]</strong> there may be yet undiscovered material, this collection provides far more than any other available source on Young's life and work. What the <em>Collected Works</em> makes clear is that Young's writing deserves our attention and has earned its way back onto the bookshelves of contemporary scholars in American modernism.</p> <p>Along with the expected and best-known poems from her three published books—<em>Ten Poems</em> (1930), <em>The Dark Land</em> (1932), and <em>The Pepper Trees</em> (1932)—the <em>Collected Works</em> includes Young's personal contributions to the esteemed <em>Blues: A Magazine of New Rhythms</em> (1929–30), and the aforementioned Modern Editions pamphlets (1932–33). This is worth mentioning, because Young is often better remembered for her administrative contributions to these titles, as cofounder and editor working with Charles Henry Ford at the former and Eric Naul at the latter (
代替摘要，这里是内容的简短摘录:评论:凯瑟琳·坦克斯利·杨的作品集由埃里克·拉普拉德和约书亚·罗斯朱莉·梅尔比(传记)凯瑟琳·坦克斯利·杨的作品集由埃里克·拉普拉德和约书亚·罗斯地下版https://sublunaryeditions.com/products/the-collected-works-kathleen-tankersley-young 248页;1933年的最后一天，《纽约时报》诗歌评论家埃达·卢·沃尔顿评论了现代版出版社发行的一系列小册子。“这些小册子代表了那些正在尝试新形式、眼睛盯着当代舞台的诗人，”她开始说。这八位诗人中有几位需要介绍和背景，以便读者理解她对他们作品的评论，但对于最近去世的凯瑟琳·坦克斯利·杨(Kathleen Tankersley Young, 1902-33)，她写道:“另一方面，杨是相当知名的，她的梦意象诗是她作品的典型特征。”多亏了《凯瑟琳·坦克斯利·杨文集》，我们现在才知道沃尔顿的评价远非准确。神秘莫测的杨神秘地生与死，让那些自以为了解她或了解她作品的人至多被误导，有时被故意愚弄。在短短不到七年的时间里，从她的第一首诗发表到她的英年早逝(官方称她死于来索尔中毒)，杨的作品从押韵的对联诗到排版创新的自由诗，勇敢地描绘了色情的梦境和荒凉的现实，发表在她那个时代一些最有影响力的学术和波西米亚期刊上。然后她走了，世界继续前进。编辑Erik La Prade和Joshua Rothes成功地收集了154部已出版和未出版的作品(主要是诗歌)，虽然他们承认可能还有未被发现的材料，但这本合集提供的关于杨的生活和工作的资料远远超过任何其他可用的资料。《作品集》清楚地表明，杨的作品值得我们关注，并重新回到了美国现代主义当代学者的书架上。除了她出版的三本书——《十首诗》(1930年)、《黑暗之地》(1932年)和《胡椒树》(1932年)——中预期的和最著名的诗歌外，《作品集》还包括杨对受人尊敬的《蓝调:新节奏杂志》(1929-30)的个人贡献，以及前面提到的《现代版》小册子(1932 - 33)。值得一提的是，因为杨更常被人记住的是她对这些书的管理贡献，她是前者的联合创始人和编辑，与查尔斯·亨利·福特(Charles Henry Ford)和后者的埃里克·保罗(Eric Naul)合作(尽管现在有理由相信保罗是虚构的)。她的罕见出版物被束之高阁，成为学术特别收藏，只有少数学者偶然发现一些关于她作品的外围提及才会阅读。有了这个重要的新卷，地下版不仅把她从锁着的金库中解放出来，而且统一了她的工作，诱人的比较和激发进一步的研究。特别有趣的是近40部未发表的作品，主要来自两份手稿，《没有形象的城市》和《边缘黑暗的两部前奏曲》，后者提交给耶鲁青年诗人系列未予成功。这些暗示了杨可能会有一个漫长的职业生涯，他选择了一条更传统的道路。特别有助于理解这些选择的是这本书的简短序言和传记时间线，揭示了一些急需的事实证据，以澄清她的分裂生活。例如，我们了解到，她于1902年在西德克萨斯州的农村出生和长大，而不是1903年的辛辛那提或1905年的纽约市，而她曾多次让批评者和朋友相信这一点。这只是她鼓励误导和保守秘密的一个小例子，甚至对她亲近的人也是如此。潜力被切断，浪漫被切断，健康被破坏:这些都是她早年生活的现实，塑造并强化了她的写作。杨的母亲于1921年去世，她的父亲于1924年去世，一年后她的第一任丈夫也去世了，她几乎没有得到任何情感上或实际的支持。从积极的方面来看，这可能提供了一定的自由，让杨在世界上重塑自己。在同样的几个早……
{"title":"The Collected Works of Kathleen Tankersley Young ed. by Erik La Prade and Joshua Rothes (review)","authors":"Julie Mellby","doi":"10.1353/abr.2023.a913430","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/abr.2023.a913430","url":null,"abstract":"<span><span>In lieu of</span> an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:</span>\u0000<p> <span>Reviewed by:</span> <ul> <li><!-- html_title --> <em>The Collected Works of Kathleen Tankersley Young</em> ed. by Erik La Prade and Joshua Rothes <!-- /html_title --></li> <li> Julie Mellby (bio) </li> </ul> <em><small>the collected works of kathleen tankersley young</small></em><br/> Edited by Erik La Prade and Joshua Rothes<br/> Sublunary Editions<br/> https://sublunaryeditions.com/products/the-collected-works-kathleen-tankersley-young<br/> 248 pages; Print, $22.00 <p>On the last day of 1933, the <em>New York Times</em> poetry critic Eda Lou Walton reviewed a series of pamphlets issued by Modern Editions Press. \"These pamphlets represent the poets who are experimenting with new forms and whose eyes are fixed upon the contemporary scene,\" she began. Several of the eight poets needed introductions and context for the reading public to appreciate her commentary on their work, but of the recently deceased Kathleen Tankersley Young (1902–33) she wrote, \"Young is, on the other hand, fairly well known, and her poem of dream imagery is fairly characteristic of her work.\"</p> <p>Thanks to <em>The Collected Works of Kathleen Tankersley Young</em>, we now know that Walton's assessment was far from accurate. The enigmatic Young lived and died mysteriously, leaving those who thought they knew her, or knew her work, misguided at best and at times deliberately fooled. In less than seven short years, from the date of her first published poem to her untimely death (officially suicide by Lysol poisoning), Young's writing fluctuated from rhyming couplets to typographically inventive free verse, bravely charting erotic dreamscapes and desolate realities, published in some of the most influential academic and bohemian journals of her day. And then she was gone and the world moved on.</p> <p>Editors Erik La Prade and Joshua Rothes have succeeded in gathering 154 published and unpublished works (primarily poetry), and while they concede <strong>[End Page 133]</strong> there may be yet undiscovered material, this collection provides far more than any other available source on Young's life and work. What the <em>Collected Works</em> makes clear is that Young's writing deserves our attention and has earned its way back onto the bookshelves of contemporary scholars in American modernism.</p> <p>Along with the expected and best-known poems from her three published books—<em>Ten Poems</em> (1930), <em>The Dark Land</em> (1932), and <em>The Pepper Trees</em> (1932)—the <em>Collected Works</em> includes Young's personal contributions to the esteemed <em>Blues: A Magazine of New Rhythms</em> (1929–30), and the aforementioned Modern Editions pamphlets (1932–33). This is worth mentioning, because Young is often better remembered for her administrative contributions to these titles, as cofounder and editor working with Charles Henry Ford at the former and Eric Naul at the latter (","PeriodicalId":41337,"journal":{"name":"AMERICAN BOOK REVIEW","volume":"15 3","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.0,"publicationDate":"2023-11-29","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"138512508","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-11-29DOI: 10.1353/abr.2023.a913435
Melinda Thomsen
<span><span>In lieu of</span> an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:</span> <p> <span>Reviewed by:</span> <ul> <li><!-- html_title --> <em>It's About Time</em> by Barry Wallenstein <!-- /html_title --></li> <li> Melinda Thomsen (bio) </li> </ul> <em><small>it's about time</small></em><br/> Barry Wallenstein<br/> New York Quarterly<br/> https://www.nyq.org/books/title/its-about-time<br/> 128 pages; Print, $18.95 <p>The cover of Barry Wallenstein's <em>It's About Time</em> shows an hourglass overfilled with sand, and Wallenstein's poems work together like moving grains of sand. They drop from the upper globe through a narrow passageway to land in a new place outside of themselves. This collection, as a whole, concludes with a feeling that time has an endless quality through the rich language Wallenstein combines with his humor, irony, and memories. Readers are almost drawn into another dimension where time no longer operates by the physics of this ancient timepiece.</p> <p>When turning the first page, the hourglass turns upside down, and sands of time begin to fall, as the opening poems consider time in respect to yesterday, today, and tomorrow. Next, in the six middle sections, sand slows to pass through the narrow tube where the poet examines a range of source material from desire to COVID where wind often functions as a metaphor for the uncertainty connecting these topics. In the last two sections, sand gathers in the bottom glass globe where poems about end-of-life themes overfill the hourglass. This sand clock progression contains rich poems filled with heartbreaking understanding from a variety of viewpoints and unexpected connections.</p> <p>The opening poems set up Wallenstein's perspective on time, as the speaker says, "Remember, we never wasted a moment— / not a jot in the rush— / your backroom, an hourglass on its side." The poems in the midsection of the journey focus on the way time is consumed by various speakers who have patched themselves together. Of course, these speakers make good and bad <strong>[End Page 160]</strong> choices, but that is part of the ride, so this collection encourages us to accept the natural riff of our own time, which will lead to, if not a happy ending, at least a peaceful one.</p> <p>When a poem steps into time, sometimes there is an "I" or a "he" speaking, but inanimate objects contribute their views too, like the perspective of an autumn leaf in the poem "Autumn Leaf." However, the "I" and "he" voices consistently appear throughout the collection. These viewpoints add a dimension to "time," which takes readers out of the sequential role of time, and puts them in one resonating moment. In "Twins," the "he" gives some clues to this pronoun's active role in many poems, and why a variety of personas reverberate through the collection:</p> <blockquote> <h3>Twins</h3> <p><span>He was born a twin</span><span>but solitary—brotherless, sisterless</span><span>an odd number, a one.</span></p> <p><span
这里有一个简短的内容摘录代替摘要:书评:这是关于时间巴里·沃伦斯坦梅林达·汤姆森(传记)这是关于时间巴里·沃伦斯坦纽约季刊https://www.nyq.org/books/title/its-about-time 128页;巴里·瓦伦斯坦(Barry Wallenstein)的《关于时间》(It's About Time)的封面上展示了一个装满沙子的沙漏，而瓦伦斯坦的诗歌就像移动的沙粒一样相互作用。他们从上层地球通过一条狭窄的通道降落到他们自身之外的一个新地方。整个作品集，通过华伦斯坦的幽默、讽刺和回忆所结合的丰富语言，给人一种时间具有无穷无尽的感觉。读者几乎被吸引到另一个维度，在那里时间不再被这个古老计时器的物理原理所操纵。翻开第一页，沙漏翻转过来，时间之沙开始落下，因为开篇的诗考虑了昨天、今天和明天的时间。接下来，在中间的六个部分，沙子缓慢地穿过狭窄的管道，诗人在这里检查了从欲望到COVID的一系列原始材料，其中风通常作为连接这些主题的不确定性的隐喻。在最后两个部分，沙子聚集在底部的玻璃球里，关于生命终结主题的诗歌填满了沙漏。这个沙钟进程包含了丰富的诗歌，充满了令人心碎的理解，从不同的观点和意想不到的联系。开篇的几首诗表达了华伦斯坦对时间的看法，正如演讲者所说:“记住，我们从未浪费过一分一秒——/没有一丝匆忙——/你的密室，一个侧面的沙漏。”旅程中间部分的诗歌关注的是时间被不同的演讲者消耗的方式，他们把自己拼凑在一起。当然，这些演讲者做出了好的和坏的选择，但这是旅程的一部分，所以这个集合鼓励我们接受我们自己时代的自然反复，这将导致，如果不是一个快乐的结局，至少是一个和平的结局。当一首诗进入时间，有时会有“我”或“他”在说话，但无生命的物体也会贡献他们的观点，比如《秋叶》这首诗中一片秋叶的视角。然而，“我”和“他”的声音始终出现在整个系列中。这些观点为“时间”增加了一个维度，将读者从时间的顺序角色中带出来，并将他们置于一个共鸣的时刻。在《双胞胎》中，“他”为这个代词在许多诗歌中的积极作用提供了一些线索，以及为什么各种各样的人物形象在这部诗集中回响:双胞胎他出生时是一对双胞胎，但孤独——没有兄弟，没有姐妹——一个奇数，一个1。很快，他就和每一个活着的人——母亲、父亲、一个路过的昏昏欲睡的邻居、家里的猫——都变成了双胞胎。他们一对视，就了解了他的容貌、五官、正在发育的体格和态度。四岁时，他们让他坐下来吃晚饭，他洗干净了，精神抖擞，所有的双胞胎都在想象着自己变老了——但不知怎么地，他们的年龄都没有变。有人批评他缺乏怀疑。另一个是他的健康，最后一个是那只猫，他那刚硬的、迅速增长的舔舐和爱的能力。风作为一个持续的隐喻，打破了人们实际上可以控制他们生活的大部分方面的想法。在“风的咨询”中，说话者更喜欢肯定的事情，他说:“即使是一片叶子从堆中吹走/也会打乱安排/使他紧张不安。”生活很少能像每一片树叶都在自己的位置上那样提供确定性或有序的进展，这首令人不安的诗说明了演讲者对他无法控制的事件的极端反应。风也出现在自然界中，就像会飞的生物，或者出现在人造建筑中，比如药物引发的旅行。在《高空飞行者》中，说话者自己变成了风的形象，通过测试他生命中最想要的高度，他冒着风险:从飘窗外，他们可以看到我上升，然后骑上比以往任何时候都高的热风。从这个高度我看不清他们的脸。他们是惊讶还是害怕，我可能会漂流…
{"title":"It's About Time by Barry Wallenstein (review)","authors":"Melinda Thomsen","doi":"10.1353/abr.2023.a913435","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/abr.2023.a913435","url":null,"abstract":"<span><span>In lieu of</span> an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:</span>\u0000<p> <span>Reviewed by:</span> <ul> <li><!-- html_title --> <em>It's About Time</em> by Barry Wallenstein <!-- /html_title --></li> <li> Melinda Thomsen (bio) </li> </ul> <em><small>it's about time</small></em><br/> Barry Wallenstein<br/> New York Quarterly<br/> https://www.nyq.org/books/title/its-about-time<br/> 128 pages; Print, $18.95 <p>The cover of Barry Wallenstein's <em>It's About Time</em> shows an hourglass overfilled with sand, and Wallenstein's poems work together like moving grains of sand. They drop from the upper globe through a narrow passageway to land in a new place outside of themselves. This collection, as a whole, concludes with a feeling that time has an endless quality through the rich language Wallenstein combines with his humor, irony, and memories. Readers are almost drawn into another dimension where time no longer operates by the physics of this ancient timepiece.</p> <p>When turning the first page, the hourglass turns upside down, and sands of time begin to fall, as the opening poems consider time in respect to yesterday, today, and tomorrow. Next, in the six middle sections, sand slows to pass through the narrow tube where the poet examines a range of source material from desire to COVID where wind often functions as a metaphor for the uncertainty connecting these topics. In the last two sections, sand gathers in the bottom glass globe where poems about end-of-life themes overfill the hourglass. This sand clock progression contains rich poems filled with heartbreaking understanding from a variety of viewpoints and unexpected connections.</p> <p>The opening poems set up Wallenstein's perspective on time, as the speaker says, \"Remember, we never wasted a moment— / not a jot in the rush— / your backroom, an hourglass on its side.\" The poems in the midsection of the journey focus on the way time is consumed by various speakers who have patched themselves together. Of course, these speakers make good and bad <strong>[End Page 160]</strong> choices, but that is part of the ride, so this collection encourages us to accept the natural riff of our own time, which will lead to, if not a happy ending, at least a peaceful one.</p> <p>When a poem steps into time, sometimes there is an \"I\" or a \"he\" speaking, but inanimate objects contribute their views too, like the perspective of an autumn leaf in the poem \"Autumn Leaf.\" However, the \"I\" and \"he\" voices consistently appear throughout the collection. These viewpoints add a dimension to \"time,\" which takes readers out of the sequential role of time, and puts them in one resonating moment. In \"Twins,\" the \"he\" gives some clues to this pronoun's active role in many poems, and why a variety of personas reverberate through the collection:</p> <blockquote> <h3>Twins</h3> <p><span>He was born a twin</span><span>but solitary—brotherless, sisterless</span><span>an odd number, a one.</span></p> <p><span","PeriodicalId":41337,"journal":{"name":"AMERICAN BOOK REVIEW","volume":"14 6","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.0,"publicationDate":"2023-11-29","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"138512511","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-11-29DOI: 10.1353/abr.2023.a913437
Daniel T. O'Hara
<span><span>In lieu of</span> an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:</span> <p> <ul> <li><!-- html_title --> Invisible Audiences<span>The Pathos of Vision in Charles Altieri's Late Poetics</span> <!-- /html_title --></li> <li> Daniel T. O'Hara (bio) </li> </ul> <p><em>Literature, Education, and Society: Bridging the Gap</em> (2023) is the latest book by Charles Altieri. Altieri is the author of many important books that combine critical theory, modernist poetry, and often modern painting. Of these books, I think his very best are <em>Act and Quality: A Theory of Literary Meaning</em> (1981), <em>Painterly Abstraction in Modernist American Poetry: The Contemporaneity of Modernism</em> (1989), and <em>The Particulars of Rapture: An Aesthetics of the Affects</em> (2003). What ties his books together is his overarching thesis that European phenomenology and Anglo-American philosophy, working together, can illuminate the continuing contemporaneity of modernism and what once upon a time was called postmodernism. That is, modernity's most characteristic arts of poetry and painting, from the Renaissance to the present moment, continue to dominate the imagination of the age, whatever name it carries. The subtitle of this new book, "Bridging the Gap," pretty much explains Altieri's approach throughout his career.</p> <p>I admire this approach, and have been pursuing it from the beginning of my own career when I first met Altieri at a "Defining Modernism" session of the MLA in the mid-1970s. These session spanned a number of years and were primarily proposed and moderated by William V. Spanos, a founding editor of <em>boundary 2</em>, a journal devoted to distinguishing postmodernism as Spanos understood it from modernism, a big issue at the time, even before Lyotard's work on postmodernism made its way into the American context. On this session's panel, Marjorie Perloff was speaking about William Carlos Williams's "This Is Just to Say." I noticed that Charlie, as those who knew him called him, was scribbling furiously, as Perloff spoke, as he sat next to her on the panel. A few years later, his counter-reading of the poem appeared in print, demonstrating literally the idea of critical conversation. For me, Charlie has always been a leader in the furthering of that conversation. So, too, this new book proposes a poetics that indeed seeks to bridge the gaps, <strong>[End Page 169]</strong> some would now say the abysses, separating the institution of literature and literary study, higher education, and American society, despite the overlaps among them.</p> <p>A hallmark of Altieri's poetics, throughout his career, has been Wallace Stevens's "Of Modern Poetry" (1942), and halfway into this short book it shows up again. Before discussing his use of the poem here, his reading of it, I want to highlight a portion of this famous poetry about poetry manifesto for my own purposes. Stevens argues at the heart of the poem that modern poetry, to be such,
这里是内容的简短摘录，而不是摘要:看不见的观众查尔斯·阿尔蒂耶里晚期诗学中的视觉悲情丹尼尔·t·奥哈拉(传记)文学，教育和社会:弥合差距(2023)是查尔斯·阿尔蒂耶里的最新著作。阿尔蒂耶里是许多结合了批判理论、现代主义诗歌和现代绘画的重要著作的作者。在这些书中，我认为他最好的是《行为与品质:文学意义理论》(1981)、《现代主义美国诗歌中的绘画抽象:现代主义的当代性》(1989)和《狂喜的细节:情感美学》(2003)。将他的书联系在一起的是他的主要论点，即欧洲现象学和英美哲学，一起工作，可以阐明现代主义和曾经被称为后现代主义的持续当代性。也就是说，从文艺复兴时期到现在，现代最具特色的诗歌和绘画艺术，无论它带着什么名字，都继续主导着这个时代的想象。这本新书的副标题“弥合差距”(Bridging The Gap)很好地解释了阿尔蒂耶里在整个职业生涯中的做法。我很欣赏这种方法，从我自己的职业生涯开始，当我在20世纪70年代中期的MLA“定义现代主义”会议上第一次见到Altieri时，我就一直在追求它。这些会议持续了数年，主要由威廉·v·斯帕诺斯(William V. Spanos)提出并主持，他是《边界2》(boundary 2)的创始编辑，该杂志致力于区分斯帕诺斯所理解的后现代主义与现代主义，这在当时是一个大问题，甚至在利奥塔德的后现代主义作品进入美国之前。在这次的小组讨论中，Marjorie Perloff谈到了William Carlos Williams的《this Is Just to Say》。我注意到查理——那些认识他的人都这么叫他——在佩尔洛夫说话的时候，正在疯狂地乱写乱画。佩尔洛夫坐在她旁边。几年后，他对这首诗的反读出现在印刷品上，从字面上证明了批判性对话的想法。对我来说，查理一直是推动这种对话的领导者。因此，这本新书也提出了一种诗学，它确实试图弥合差距，有些人现在称之为深渊，将文学机构和文学研究，高等教育和美国社会分开，尽管它们之间存在重叠。在阿尔提耶里的整个诗学生涯中，华莱士·史蒂文斯(Wallace Stevens)的《现代诗歌》(of Modern Poetry, 1942)一直是他诗学的一个标志，在这本短小的书中，它又出现了。在讨论他对这首诗的使用，他对它的解读之前，我想强调一下这首著名的关于诗歌宣言的诗的一部分。史蒂文斯在这首诗的核心提出，现代诗歌要想成为这样的诗歌，就必须构建一个新的舞台，因为思想舞台上的旧舞台已经被取代，就像世界的旧剧本必须被修改，在新的舞台上，在新的舞台上，重新书写一样:然后，像一个贪得无厌的演员，慢慢地，沉思着，在耳朵里，在心灵最灵敏的耳朵里，重复着它想要听到的话语，在这种声音中，一个看不见的观众，不是在听剧本，而是在听它自己，表达着一种情感，就像两个人的情感，两种情感合二为一。演员是一个形而上的学者，在黑暗中摇着弦。一种乐器，摇着弦，发出声音，通过突然的权利，完全包含了思想，它不能下降到下面，也没有意愿上升到上面。史蒂文斯说的是“形而上学家”，但如果我们在这里和他的职业生涯中采用他对阿尔铁里的作品的描述，我们可以用“理论家”来代替，特别是如果我们理解阿尔铁里是如何在这本最新的诗学中引用海德格尔和维特根斯坦的语录来达到他的目的，以及更广泛的目的。他的意向性与史蒂文斯的相同，是心灵的巨大分裂的一件事:“它必须/是对一种满足的发现，也可能/是一个滑冰的男人，一个跳舞的女人，一个梳头的女人。”心灵行为的诗。”对阿尔蒂耶里来说，现代主义、后现代主义、诗歌、文学、绘画和所有富有想象力的诗学都有这个中心……
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Pub Date : 2023-11-29DOI: 10.1353/abr.2023.a913416
Dan-el Padilla Peralta
<span><span>In lieu of</span> an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:</span> <p> <ul> <li><!-- html_title --> Debts <!-- /html_title --></li> <li> Dan-el Padilla Peralta (bio) </li> </ul> <blockquote> <p>Only way he comin' back is through his unborns</p> —Lil Wayne, "Uproar" (2018) </blockquote> <p>Recently I've been spending some time in the intellectual company of longtermists, not because I find their arguments persuasive but because they seem to have stumbled upon an effective rhetorical strategy. As I understand it, their move is to direct attention away from the muddy moral universe of the present to that final frontier of the far-off future, so invitingly fraught in the glistening promise of its unknowability. And there's no denying the strategy's success: books here, media coverage there, stacks of funding everywhere. Yet the more I read the longtermists, the more they seem like twenty-first-century versions of Augustine of Hippo, their heavenly city populated by blissed-out distant generations. But I'm convinced, too, that, much like Augustine's, their fixation on the future contains an important message about the valuation of the past. It's a message about valuation and struggle.</p> <p>I use the word <em>valuation</em> carefully. I want to think about value. The longtermists would have us assign the greatest value to the lives of future generations, indeed of future selves: vast, in fact potentially unknowably vast, in their quantity, and therefore exerting obligations on us by the sheer force of their number. But I submit that the greatest obligations we have are not to selves in the future whom (with the exception of our children, grandchildren, and, if we're lucky, great-grandchildren) we won't ever know, but to the selves of the past whom we can, at least in principle, come to know. Not in the fullness of their personal interiority, of course; even the recently dead are shadowy, and those dead for many years or decades or centuries or millennia much more so. But because they existed, we can come to know them, and cultivate relationships with them, in ways precluded by the still-not-existence of the unborn. And the mere <em>prospect</em> of those relationships creates ethical demands. The realization of those demands comes down, ultimately, to the business of value, and to the necessity of struggle. <strong>[End Page 64]</strong></p> <p>The field that has come to be known as Classics is all about value. That much is apparent from its very name. If we are not to disavow that name (and I think there are good reasons for doing just that), then we need to think harder about the demands and merits of struggling for value in a way that simultaneously honors our obligation to this confounded and confounding world, and to the pasts—and past people—who brought this world into being. My belief is that this struggle must be <em>reparative</em>: not only must it directly confront the ill-gotten gains of racial capitalism, it must a
{"title":"Debts","authors":"Dan-el Padilla Peralta","doi":"10.1353/abr.2023.a913416","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/abr.2023.a913416","url":null,"abstract":"<span><span>In lieu of</span> an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:</span>\u0000<p> <ul> <li><!-- html_title --> Debts <!-- /html_title --></li> <li> Dan-el Padilla Peralta (bio) </li> </ul> <blockquote> <p>Only way he comin' back is through his unborns</p> —Lil Wayne, \"Uproar\" (2018) </blockquote> <p>Recently I've been spending some time in the intellectual company of longtermists, not because I find their arguments persuasive but because they seem to have stumbled upon an effective rhetorical strategy. As I understand it, their move is to direct attention away from the muddy moral universe of the present to that final frontier of the far-off future, so invitingly fraught in the glistening promise of its unknowability. And there's no denying the strategy's success: books here, media coverage there, stacks of funding everywhere. Yet the more I read the longtermists, the more they seem like twenty-first-century versions of Augustine of Hippo, their heavenly city populated by blissed-out distant generations. But I'm convinced, too, that, much like Augustine's, their fixation on the future contains an important message about the valuation of the past. It's a message about valuation and struggle.</p> <p>I use the word <em>valuation</em> carefully. I want to think about value. The longtermists would have us assign the greatest value to the lives of future generations, indeed of future selves: vast, in fact potentially unknowably vast, in their quantity, and therefore exerting obligations on us by the sheer force of their number. But I submit that the greatest obligations we have are not to selves in the future whom (with the exception of our children, grandchildren, and, if we're lucky, great-grandchildren) we won't ever know, but to the selves of the past whom we can, at least in principle, come to know. Not in the fullness of their personal interiority, of course; even the recently dead are shadowy, and those dead for many years or decades or centuries or millennia much more so. But because they existed, we can come to know them, and cultivate relationships with them, in ways precluded by the still-not-existence of the unborn. And the mere <em>prospect</em> of those relationships creates ethical demands. The realization of those demands comes down, ultimately, to the business of value, and to the necessity of struggle. <strong>[End Page 64]</strong></p> <p>The field that has come to be known as Classics is all about value. That much is apparent from its very name. If we are not to disavow that name (and I think there are good reasons for doing just that), then we need to think harder about the demands and merits of struggling for value in a way that simultaneously honors our obligation to this confounded and confounding world, and to the pasts—and past people—who brought this world into being. My belief is that this struggle must be <em>reparative</em>: not only must it directly confront the ill-gotten gains of racial capitalism, it must a","PeriodicalId":41337,"journal":{"name":"AMERICAN BOOK REVIEW","volume":"2 9","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.0,"publicationDate":"2023-11-29","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"138526935","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-11-29DOI: 10.1353/abr.2023.a913407
Brooke Holmes
<span><span>In lieu of</span> an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:</span> <p> <ul> <li><!-- html_title --> Unlearning Limits <!-- /html_title --></li> <li> Brooke Holmes (bio) </li> </ul> <p>The nature of the classical is to give the impression of immunity to time. In practice, what is most certain is its endless rethinking. If the classical is unstable, so much more so is that thing we call Classics. For professional classicists, this last point unsettles at a moment when the future of the field is so precarious within a broader crisis of the humanities. The risk of rethinking Classics is often posed as the loss of the academic study of ancient Greece and Rome. But doubling down on the status quo undoubtedly puts the study of the ancient Mediterranean in as much danger as demands for radical change, especially if complacency becomes the modus operandi of well-resourced institutions like my own. In any event, swinging between inertia and millenarianism uses up energy better spent on organizing and sustaining new communities inside and outside universities convened around a shared attention to an ancient past, as in fact so many scholar-activists—in many cases from marginalized positions that bring heightened risk to speaking out—have been doing.</p> <p>By reframing the object of attention in the expanded terms of an ancient past, we confront one of the most pressing issues for disciplinary reimagination: What are the boundaries of the ancient world? And how do these boundaries determine its study? It's hardly a radical claim, at least in essays of this genre, to declare that these boundaries extend far beyond Greece and Rome in their most "classical" periods (fifth- and fourth-century <small>bce</small> Athens; Rome of the first centuries <small>bce</small> and <small>ce</small>). The study of the once maligned periods of Hellenistic and late antiquity has flourished for decades. Ancient history has been adroitly navigating between the micro-scale of local community and much broader research zones organized by comparison and contact. The rapid rise of classical reception studies, focused on how ancient texts and artifacts have been read and reread across time and space, has redefined the temporal boundaries of the field so that they exceed "antiquity" altogether. Increasingly, those trained as classicists are not only reading but also writing histories of modern classicism as defined by the narrowed nineteenth- and twentieth-century valuation of ancient Greece and Rome and the formation <strong>[End Page 24]</strong> of Classics as an academic field in Europe and the US through processes imbricated in biopolitical racism, empire, nationalism, and fascism.</p> <p>These critical histories of the discipline have helped expand its boundaries and clarified the urgency of centering receptions of ancient Greece and Rome by all of those who have had classical humanism weaponized against their sovereignty, their flourishing, and their comm
{"title":"Unlearning Limits","authors":"Brooke Holmes","doi":"10.1353/abr.2023.a913407","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/abr.2023.a913407","url":null,"abstract":"<span><span>In lieu of</span> an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:</span>\u0000<p> <ul> <li><!-- html_title --> Unlearning Limits <!-- /html_title --></li> <li> Brooke Holmes (bio) </li> </ul> <p>The nature of the classical is to give the impression of immunity to time. In practice, what is most certain is its endless rethinking. If the classical is unstable, so much more so is that thing we call Classics. For professional classicists, this last point unsettles at a moment when the future of the field is so precarious within a broader crisis of the humanities. The risk of rethinking Classics is often posed as the loss of the academic study of ancient Greece and Rome. But doubling down on the status quo undoubtedly puts the study of the ancient Mediterranean in as much danger as demands for radical change, especially if complacency becomes the modus operandi of well-resourced institutions like my own. In any event, swinging between inertia and millenarianism uses up energy better spent on organizing and sustaining new communities inside and outside universities convened around a shared attention to an ancient past, as in fact so many scholar-activists—in many cases from marginalized positions that bring heightened risk to speaking out—have been doing.</p> <p>By reframing the object of attention in the expanded terms of an ancient past, we confront one of the most pressing issues for disciplinary reimagination: What are the boundaries of the ancient world? And how do these boundaries determine its study? It's hardly a radical claim, at least in essays of this genre, to declare that these boundaries extend far beyond Greece and Rome in their most \"classical\" periods (fifth- and fourth-century <small>bce</small> Athens; Rome of the first centuries <small>bce</small> and <small>ce</small>). The study of the once maligned periods of Hellenistic and late antiquity has flourished for decades. Ancient history has been adroitly navigating between the micro-scale of local community and much broader research zones organized by comparison and contact. The rapid rise of classical reception studies, focused on how ancient texts and artifacts have been read and reread across time and space, has redefined the temporal boundaries of the field so that they exceed \"antiquity\" altogether. Increasingly, those trained as classicists are not only reading but also writing histories of modern classicism as defined by the narrowed nineteenth- and twentieth-century valuation of ancient Greece and Rome and the formation <strong>[End Page 24]</strong> of Classics as an academic field in Europe and the US through processes imbricated in biopolitical racism, empire, nationalism, and fascism.</p> <p>These critical histories of the discipline have helped expand its boundaries and clarified the urgency of centering receptions of ancient Greece and Rome by all of those who have had classical humanism weaponized against their sovereignty, their flourishing, and their comm","PeriodicalId":41337,"journal":{"name":"AMERICAN BOOK REVIEW","volume":"498 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.0,"publicationDate":"2023-11-29","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"138526995","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-11-29DOI: 10.1353/abr.2023.a913432
Renee H. Shea
<span><span>In lieu of</span> an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:</span> <p> <ul> <li><!-- html_title --> The "Priceless Risk" of J. Drew Lanham<span>Poet Laureate of Edgefield County, South Carolina</span> <!-- /html_title --></li> <li> Renee H. Shea </li> </ul> <p>With a history that spans centuries, the role of a poet laureate has gained enormous popularity and influence in the twenty-first century. In the United States, what began as a Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress in 1937 has proliferated into a full-fledged national program. Today, poet laureates representing states, regions, big cities, and small towns join with youth laureates to build and bring community through print, spoken word, music, and performance. This conversation with Joseph Drew Lanham is the first of a series—"The Laureates"—that will engage current and past poet laureates who are spreading the word in diverse settings, each in their distinctive ways, though always starting with their own poems and vision.</p> <p>The poet laureate of Edgefield County, a small county in South Carolina, where he grew up, Lanham is recognized nationally as a writer, environmentalist, and ornithologist. A University Distinguished Alumni Professor of Wildlife Ecology and a Master Teacher in the Department of Forestry and Environmental Conservation at Clemson University, he has been honored with numerous grants and awards; in 2022 he received a MacArthur "Genius Grant." He is the author of a memoir titled <em>The Home Place: Memoirs of a Colored Man's Love Affair with Nature</em> (2016) and of <em>Sparrow Envy</em> (2017), a poetry collection. Forthcoming books include <em>Joy Is the Justice We Give Ourselves</em> and <em>Range Maps: Birds, Blackness, and Loving Nature between the Two</em>.</p> <p>Lanham seeks to bring the historical past into the present as he explores connections between the natural world and social justice with a special focus on David Drake, an enslaved man living in the 1800s, known for his exceptional pottery that today is highly coveted by museums and collectors. Lanham's study reflects his belief that, as he writes, "I cannot tell stories of birds and of the cypress swamps and old rice fields I frequent in low-country <strong>[End Page 142]</strong> South Carolina without telling the story of those who moved forests, soil, and water through force and greed. There are stories in the soil that have to be plowed up" ("Forever Gone," <em>Orion Magazine</em>, 21 February 2018). As poet laureate, he continues to unearth those stories, often transforming them into poems and inspiring others to do the same.</p> <p><em>(The following conversation occurred via Zoom and email in March 2023.)</em></p> <blockquote> <strong><small>renee h. shea</small></strong>: <p>In the opening of <em>The Home Place</em> you write: "I am a man in love with nature. I am an eco-addict . . . a wildling . . . an ornithologist, wildlife ecologist, and college professor . .
为了代替摘要，这里有一个简短的内容摘录:J.德鲁·兰哈姆的“无价的风险”艾奇菲尔德县桂冠诗人，南卡罗来纳州Renee H. Shea在跨越几个世纪的历史中，桂冠诗人的角色在二十一世纪获得了巨大的知名度和影响力。在美国，从1937年作为国会图书馆的诗歌顾问开始，已经发展成为一个成熟的国家项目。今天，代表各州、地区、大城市和小城镇的桂冠诗人与青年桂冠诗人一起，通过印刷品、口语、音乐和表演建立并带来社区。与约瑟夫·德鲁·兰哈姆的对话是“桂冠诗人”系列的第一篇，该系列将吸引现任和过去的桂冠诗人，他们在不同的环境中传播世界，每个人都以自己独特的方式开始，尽管总是以自己的诗歌和愿景开始。兰哈姆是南卡罗莱纳的一个小县埃奇菲尔德县的桂冠诗人，他在那里长大，是全国公认的作家、环保主义者和鸟类学家。他是克莱姆森大学野生动物生态学大学杰出校友教授，也是克莱姆森大学林业与环境保护系的硕士生教师，他获得了许多资助和奖励;2022年，他获得了麦克阿瑟“天才奖”。他是回忆录《故乡:有色人种与自然的爱情回忆录》(2016年)和诗集《麻雀嫉妒》(2017年)的作者。即将出版的书包括《快乐是我们给自己的正义》和《范围地图:鸟类、黑暗和两者之间的自然之爱》。Lanham试图将历史带入现在，他探索自然世界与社会正义之间的联系，特别关注David Drake，一个生活在19世纪的奴隶，以其独特的陶器而闻名，今天被博物馆和收藏家高度垂涎。Lanham的研究反映了他的信念，正如他所写的那样，“我不能讲述我在南卡罗来纳低地经常看到的鸟类、柏树沼泽和老稻田的故事，而不讲述那些通过武力和贪婪移动森林、土壤和水的人的故事。”土壤里有需要挖掘的故事”(《永远消失》，猎户座杂志，2018年2月21日)。作为桂冠诗人，他继续挖掘这些故事，经常把它们变成诗歌，并激励其他人也这样做。(以下对话发生在2023年3月通过Zoom和电子邮件)蕾妮·h·谢伊:在《家的地方》的开头，你写道:“我是一个热爱自然的人。我是个生态上瘾者……一个野人……鸟类学家，野生动物生态学家，大学教授…父亲、丈夫、儿子和兄弟。我希望对一些人来说我是朋友…我是有色人种. . . ."哪一个是埃奇菲尔德县的桂冠诗人?j. drew lanham:我希望他们都是，但我没有说我是一个诗人，这是一个有趣的遗漏，因为在很多方面，我认为自己首先是一个诗人。从历史上看，艾奇菲尔德对美国的影响让许多州相形见绌——它一直限制着黑人，所以我希望这些标签能变成另一种桂冠诗人。rhs:你说Edgefield让其他地方相形见绌是什么意思?约翰:作为一个思考美国历史的黑人，我首先想到的是我的祖先和奴隶制，比如五分之三妥协案和吉姆·克劳法。最终，大部分政策都是由埃奇菲尔德县制定的，该州的10位州长也是如此。斯特罗姆·瑟蒙德(Edgefield本地人)像其他许多人一样，以一个人之力为“隔离但平等”提供了许可，但他拥有独特的影响力。“干草叉本”蒂尔曼(Pitchfork Ben Tillman)的种族主义言论一遍又一遍地重复，甚至一直到最近入主白宫的那个人。普雷斯顿·布鲁克斯——一个奴隶贩子、分离主义者和种族隔离主义者——在美国参议院鞭打了他的同僚、废奴主义者查尔斯·萨姆纳。当我想到艾奇菲尔德是什么以及曾经是什么时，一个黑人以桂冠诗人的身份代表它是非常了不起的——拥有语言的力量，或者……
{"title":"The \"Priceless Risk\" of J. Drew Lanham: Poet Laureate of Edgefield County, South Carolina","authors":"Renee H. Shea","doi":"10.1353/abr.2023.a913432","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/abr.2023.a913432","url":null,"abstract":"<span><span>In lieu of</span> an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:</span>\u0000<p> <ul> <li><!-- html_title --> The \"Priceless Risk\" of J. Drew Lanham<span>Poet Laureate of Edgefield County, South Carolina</span> <!-- /html_title --></li> <li> Renee H. Shea </li> </ul> <p>With a history that spans centuries, the role of a poet laureate has gained enormous popularity and influence in the twenty-first century. In the United States, what began as a Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress in 1937 has proliferated into a full-fledged national program. Today, poet laureates representing states, regions, big cities, and small towns join with youth laureates to build and bring community through print, spoken word, music, and performance. This conversation with Joseph Drew Lanham is the first of a series—\"The Laureates\"—that will engage current and past poet laureates who are spreading the word in diverse settings, each in their distinctive ways, though always starting with their own poems and vision.</p> <p>The poet laureate of Edgefield County, a small county in South Carolina, where he grew up, Lanham is recognized nationally as a writer, environmentalist, and ornithologist. A University Distinguished Alumni Professor of Wildlife Ecology and a Master Teacher in the Department of Forestry and Environmental Conservation at Clemson University, he has been honored with numerous grants and awards; in 2022 he received a MacArthur \"Genius Grant.\" He is the author of a memoir titled <em>The Home Place: Memoirs of a Colored Man's Love Affair with Nature</em> (2016) and of <em>Sparrow Envy</em> (2017), a poetry collection. Forthcoming books include <em>Joy Is the Justice We Give Ourselves</em> and <em>Range Maps: Birds, Blackness, and Loving Nature between the Two</em>.</p> <p>Lanham seeks to bring the historical past into the present as he explores connections between the natural world and social justice with a special focus on David Drake, an enslaved man living in the 1800s, known for his exceptional pottery that today is highly coveted by museums and collectors. Lanham's study reflects his belief that, as he writes, \"I cannot tell stories of birds and of the cypress swamps and old rice fields I frequent in low-country <strong>[End Page 142]</strong> South Carolina without telling the story of those who moved forests, soil, and water through force and greed. There are stories in the soil that have to be plowed up\" (\"Forever Gone,\" <em>Orion Magazine</em>, 21 February 2018). As poet laureate, he continues to unearth those stories, often transforming them into poems and inspiring others to do the same.</p> <p><em>(The following conversation occurred via Zoom and email in March 2023.)</em></p> <blockquote> <strong><small>renee h. shea</small></strong>: <p>In the opening of <em>The Home Place</em> you write: \"I am a man in love with nature. I am an eco-addict . . . a wildling . . . an ornithologist, wildlife ecologist, and college professor . .","PeriodicalId":41337,"journal":{"name":"AMERICAN BOOK REVIEW","volume":"13 6","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.0,"publicationDate":"2023-11-29","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"138512513","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-11-29DOI: 10.1353/abr.2023.a913418
Anthony Madrid
<span><span>In lieu of</span> an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:</span> <p> <ul> <li><!-- html_title --> On the Salernitan Questions <!-- /html_title --></li> <li> Anthony Madrid (bio) </li> </ul> <p>The backstory is charming. A book collector buys a Renaissance manuscript codex. He finds in it, amid piles of unrelated material, a transcript of a bizarre Latin poem, about three quarters of which is nothing but a rigmarole of questions. "Why do tidings of disgrace cure hiccups?" "Why do women have irrational pregnancy cravings?" "Why are puppies born blind, and then, exactly nine days later, they can see?" One hundred and thirty lines of this.</p> <p>Our scholar does some research and locates the source text of the transcript, and the source text of the source text, and the source text of <em>that</em>, and so on, until he winds up a world expert on "Question" literature, aka "Problem" literature. It turns out there's this rich history.</p> <p>The above, which sounds like something Borges would have made up, is real. I'm simplifying things, but it's all true. The collector's name was Brian Lawn. He died in 2001, age ninety-five or ninety-six. His first book, <em>The Salernitan Questions</em> (1963), was his attempt to introduce the reader to a genre he had come to love. The book is a chaste, scholarly edition of a text he calls the "<em>Speculator</em> Broadside," which is the immediate source text for the handwritten thing he had purchased, years before. And he doesn't just give you the Latin poem and the translation. He gives you the whole kit: "An Introduction to the History of Medieval and Renaissance Problem Literature."</p> <p>I found out about <em>The Salernitan Questions</em> because I was amateur-researching a West African analogue to it. Let me give a choice specimen, originally delivered in Ewe, a language spoken mainly in Ghana:</p> <blockquote> <p>"Hear a parable!" "May the parable come!" "One day an eagle swooped down upon the beautiful daughter of a chief and carried her to an island in the river. The chief looked for people to fetch his daughter away from the eagle. A thief, a hunter, and a mender came at once. The thief said he could steal the girl from the talons of the eagle. The hunter said that should the eagle see them and try to <strong>[End Page 75]</strong> recapture the girl, he would shoot him, so that he would die at once. The mender said that should the eagle (having been shot) fall into the boat and break it, he would patch it up.</p> <p>"As soon as they had started off, the thief stole the girl. As they reached the middle of the river, the eagle came to take the child. Then the hunter shot him, so that he fell into the boat, which was shattered into a thousand pieces. The mender immediately patched the boat, so that they reached home safely. Which of these three people did the most, thereby gaining the praise of the chief?"</p> </blockquote> <p>You have to understand: There is no "correct" answer to
{"title":"On the Salernitan Questions","authors":"Anthony Madrid","doi":"10.1353/abr.2023.a913418","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/abr.2023.a913418","url":null,"abstract":"<span><span>In lieu of</span> an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:</span>\u0000<p> <ul> <li><!-- html_title --> On the Salernitan Questions <!-- /html_title --></li> <li> Anthony Madrid (bio) </li> </ul> <p>The backstory is charming. A book collector buys a Renaissance manuscript codex. He finds in it, amid piles of unrelated material, a transcript of a bizarre Latin poem, about three quarters of which is nothing but a rigmarole of questions. \"Why do tidings of disgrace cure hiccups?\" \"Why do women have irrational pregnancy cravings?\" \"Why are puppies born blind, and then, exactly nine days later, they can see?\" One hundred and thirty lines of this.</p> <p>Our scholar does some research and locates the source text of the transcript, and the source text of the source text, and the source text of <em>that</em>, and so on, until he winds up a world expert on \"Question\" literature, aka \"Problem\" literature. It turns out there's this rich history.</p> <p>The above, which sounds like something Borges would have made up, is real. I'm simplifying things, but it's all true. The collector's name was Brian Lawn. He died in 2001, age ninety-five or ninety-six. His first book, <em>The Salernitan Questions</em> (1963), was his attempt to introduce the reader to a genre he had come to love. The book is a chaste, scholarly edition of a text he calls the \"<em>Speculator</em> Broadside,\" which is the immediate source text for the handwritten thing he had purchased, years before. And he doesn't just give you the Latin poem and the translation. He gives you the whole kit: \"An Introduction to the History of Medieval and Renaissance Problem Literature.\"</p> <p>I found out about <em>The Salernitan Questions</em> because I was amateur-researching a West African analogue to it. Let me give a choice specimen, originally delivered in Ewe, a language spoken mainly in Ghana:</p> <blockquote> <p>\"Hear a parable!\" \"May the parable come!\" \"One day an eagle swooped down upon the beautiful daughter of a chief and carried her to an island in the river. The chief looked for people to fetch his daughter away from the eagle. A thief, a hunter, and a mender came at once. The thief said he could steal the girl from the talons of the eagle. The hunter said that should the eagle see them and try to <strong>[End Page 75]</strong> recapture the girl, he would shoot him, so that he would die at once. The mender said that should the eagle (having been shot) fall into the boat and break it, he would patch it up.</p> <p>\"As soon as they had started off, the thief stole the girl. As they reached the middle of the river, the eagle came to take the child. Then the hunter shot him, so that he fell into the boat, which was shattered into a thousand pieces. The mender immediately patched the boat, so that they reached home safely. Which of these three people did the most, thereby gaining the praise of the chief?\"</p> </blockquote> <p>You have to understand: There is no \"correct\" answer to","PeriodicalId":41337,"journal":{"name":"AMERICAN BOOK REVIEW","volume":"1 11","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.0,"publicationDate":"2023-11-29","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"138526972","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-11-29DOI: 10.1353/abr.2023.a913411
Patrice D. Rankine
<span><span>In lieu of</span> an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:</span> <p> <ul> <li><!-- html_title --> Images and the Discipline of the Classics <!-- /html_title --></li> <li> Patrice D. Rankine (bio) </li> </ul> <p>No one in the Global North alive in 2016 can forget the haunting image of the young boy with disheveled, dusty hair, his hollow stare into the camera as blood obscures half his face. The boy was five-year-old Omran Daqneesh, a Syrian caught in a Russian air strike on the al-Qatarji neighborhood of Aleppo during the Syrian Civil War. The picture had been staged, a gesture of grand significance, given the realities of mass media Guy Debord described long ago in <em>The Society of Spectacle</em> (1967). Anthropologist Rania Sweis (<em>Paradoxes of Care: Children and Global Medical Aid in Egypt</em> [2021]) sets the viral image within a global obsession with humanitarian aid, which belies the paradoxes of the industry, the questions of who the recipients of such care are and whether these (mostly children) are getting the resources they truly need. Half a century earlier, the leaders of the civil rights movement in the United States seized upon the spectacular truth of images (worth thousands of words) in the promulgation of the 1955 photograph of Emmett Till's open casket, revealing a face so disfigured that anyone seeing it would have to consider the horrendous violence enacted upon Black people in America during segregated times and beyond.</p> <p>Those committed to academic disciplines, in my case the Classics, can learn about relevance and impact from the ubiquity of these images. Within a society of spectacle, control of the image is a specialty, to whatever extent the Kim Kardashians of the world are self-conscious about the power they wield (although Kim undeniably is). The compulsion to compose and promulgate pictures propelled Darnella Frazier to fame in 2020. At seventeen years old, she captured the horrendous murder of George Floyd on her cellphone camera, an act that uncannily enclosed her trauma: the continuous recall of the event, and later, her recital at the 2021 trial of Floyd's murderer (former police officer Derek Chauvin) of what she saw the previous year. For the use of her cellphone camera as a craft, Frazier has received several commendations, including a Pulitzer special award in 2021, kudos somewhat countervailing to her grim experiences. Frazer's ubiquity is one lesson, and the personal impact of her tool is an even more intimate reminder of the purpose of a discipline. <strong>[End Page 42]</strong> Although there is little internet trace of Frazer after 2021, from her Instagram page, she loves photography, it brings her joy, and it provides a window from herself to the world, or a bridge "between the world and me," as James Baldwin might put it. As a tool, the camera has immediate relevance, and its control and deployment are meaningful from a variety of standpoints: evoking emotion, prompt
这里有一段简短的内容摘录:图片与经典的戒律(人物简介)在2016年的北半球，没有人会忘记这个小男孩的令人难以忘怀的形象:头发蓬乱，满是灰尘，他空洞地盯着镜头，血遮住了他的半张脸。这名男孩名叫奥姆兰·达克尼什(Omran Daqneesh)，是叙利亚内战期间，俄罗斯对阿勒颇的al-Qatarji社区发动空袭时抓获的一名叙利亚人。鉴于盖伊·德波很久以前在《景观社会》(The Society of Spectacle, 1967)中所描述的大众传媒的现实，这幅画被摆上了舞台，是一种具有重大意义的姿态。人类学家Rania Sweis(《关怀的悖论:埃及儿童与全球医疗援助》[2021])在全球对人道主义援助的痴迷中树立了一种病毒式的形象，这掩盖了该行业的悖论，即谁是这种关怀的接受者，以及这些人(主要是儿童)是否得到了他们真正需要的资源。半个世纪以前，美国民权运动的领袖们在1955年公布埃米特·蒂尔(Emmett Till)打开的棺材的照片时，抓住了照片中惊人的真相(价值数千字)，照片上露出的是一张毁弃的脸，任何人看到它都会想到，在种族隔离时期及以后，美国黑人遭受的可怕暴力。那些致力于学术学科的人，在我的例子中是经典，可以从这些无处不在的图像中了解相关性和影响。在一个讲究场面的社会里，控制形象是一项专长，无论金·卡戴珊(Kim kardashian)家族在多大程度上对自己所拥有的权力有自我意识(尽管金·卡戴珊无疑是)。创作和传播图片的冲动使达内拉·弗雷泽在2020年成名。17岁时，她用手机拍下了乔治·弗洛伊德(George Floyd)被谋杀的可怕场景，这一行为不可思议地掩盖了她的创伤:她不断回忆起这一事件，后来，她在2021年对谋杀弗洛伊德的凶手(前警官德里克·肖文(Derek Chauvin))的审判中，讲述了她在前一年看到的情景。弗雷泽把手机相机当作一门手艺，因此获得了几项嘉奖，包括2021年的普利策特别奖，这些荣誉在某种程度上抵消了她的残酷经历。弗雷泽的无处不在是一个教训，而她的工具对个人的影响则是一个更亲密的提醒，提醒我们一门学科的目的。虽然在2021年之后，弗雷泽在互联网上几乎没有任何痕迹，但从她的Instagram页面上可以看出，她热爱摄影，摄影给她带来了快乐，它为她提供了一扇通向世界的窗口，或者用詹姆斯·鲍德温(James Baldwin)的话来说，是“世界和我之间”的一座桥梁。作为一种工具，相机具有直接的相关性，它的控制和部署从各种角度来看都是有意义的:唤起情感，促使社会和政治领域的行动或反应。年轻人是否有可能以这种方式接触经典，让它无处不在，随手拿起，并在情感上产生影响?这一学科将发生怎样的转变?它将如何改变自己的形象?对图像(甚至是深度伪造或错误生成的图像)的掌握是我们这个时代最重要的技术之一，尽管掌握本身可能存在问题。古典主义者经常使用技术知识作为把关。缺乏专业知识并不妨碍我们进入图像的世界，看到彼得被打得遍体鳞伤的背影，他是一个非洲裔奴隶，联邦军曾用他的形象来展示奴隶制的恐怖。随着图像的激增，很难区分新手和专业人士，正如对弗雷泽的赞扬所证明的那样。表象背后的工具在照片或电影中变得不可见，但掌握总是可能的。尽管弗雷泽像大多数人一样随意地使用她的手机相机，但她不能忽视它为追求正义服务的事实，就像奥姆兰的摄影师马哈茂德·拉斯兰(Mahmoud Raslan)一样，他说他希望每一张受苦儿童的照片都能像病毒一样传播开来。从图像的例子中，我们看到一个学科可以同时服务于几个目的。首先，工艺使人完整。小说家拉尔夫……
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