Pub Date : 2021-11-25DOI: 10.1093/actrade/9780190640194.003.0001
D. Caplan
“American poetry’s two characteristics” explains the two characteristics which mark American poetry. On the one hand, several of its major figures promoted American poetry as essentially different from any other nation’s. Although the reasons they offer vary, they typically claim that American experience demands a different kind of expression. Such poets advocate for novelty, for a break with what is perceived to be outmoded and foreign. On the other hand, American poetry might be more rightly called profoundly transnational. American poetry often welcomes techniques, styles, and traditions originating from outside it. The two characteristics do not exist separately from each other. Rather, they work in a productive dialectic, inspiring both individual accomplishment and the broader field. Examples include Anne Bradstreet, Elizabeth Bishop, Wallace Stevens, and Langston Hughes.
{"title":"1. American poetry’s two characteristics","authors":"D. Caplan","doi":"10.1093/actrade/9780190640194.003.0001","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/actrade/9780190640194.003.0001","url":null,"abstract":"“American poetry’s two characteristics” explains the two characteristics which mark American poetry. On the one hand, several of its major figures promoted American poetry as essentially different from any other nation’s. Although the reasons they offer vary, they typically claim that American experience demands a different kind of expression. Such poets advocate for novelty, for a break with what is perceived to be outmoded and foreign. On the other hand, American poetry might be more rightly called profoundly transnational. American poetry often welcomes techniques, styles, and traditions originating from outside it. The two characteristics do not exist separately from each other. Rather, they work in a productive dialectic, inspiring both individual accomplishment and the broader field. Examples include Anne Bradstreet, Elizabeth Bishop, Wallace Stevens, and Langston Hughes.","PeriodicalId":422858,"journal":{"name":"American Poetry: A Very Short Introduction","volume":"32 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-11-25","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"134501274","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2021-11-25DOI: 10.1093/actrade/9780190640194.003.0004
D. Caplan
“Auden and Eliot” looks at the poetic careers of T. S. Eliot and W. H. Auden, which both trouble the very idea of a national literature. The British-born Auden immigrated to the United States and the American-born Eliot immigrated to England. Both wrote significant poems before and after their moves. An examination of Auden and Eliot’s poetry allows us to consider how these two major poets understood American poetry and their place in it, the resources it gave them, and the limitations that frustrated them. Generations of readers have puzzled over these questions since they involve two major authors and the intersections of individual lives with complex issues of nationhood, including national identity, anxiety, and pride. In short, their work enriches the story of American poetry by complicating it.
{"title":"4. Auden and Eliot","authors":"D. Caplan","doi":"10.1093/actrade/9780190640194.003.0004","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/actrade/9780190640194.003.0004","url":null,"abstract":"“Auden and Eliot” looks at the poetic careers of T. S. Eliot and W. H. Auden, which both trouble the very idea of a national literature. The British-born Auden immigrated to the United States and the American-born Eliot immigrated to England. Both wrote significant poems before and after their moves. An examination of Auden and Eliot’s poetry allows us to consider how these two major poets understood American poetry and their place in it, the resources it gave them, and the limitations that frustrated them. Generations of readers have puzzled over these questions since they involve two major authors and the intersections of individual lives with complex issues of nationhood, including national identity, anxiety, and pride. In short, their work enriches the story of American poetry by complicating it.","PeriodicalId":422858,"journal":{"name":"American Poetry: A Very Short Introduction","volume":"3 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-11-25","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"124039841","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2021-11-25DOI: 10.1093/actrade/9780190640194.003.0005
D. Caplan
“On the present and future of American poetry” argues that the contemporary poets who follow Robert Lowell’s model of blending public and private history often turn against the particular hierarchies that made the Lowell name seem “significant, illustrative, American, etc.” Instead, contemporary poets have taken up the challenge of presenting a new account of American history and culture. They introduce a new set of important names of people and places. The poets of the Black Lives Matter movement, for instance, elegize African American victims of police violence. At the same time, their poems add new variations of the two characteristics of American: the perceived need for distinctiveness and its transnationalism.
{"title":"5. On the present and future of American poetry","authors":"D. Caplan","doi":"10.1093/actrade/9780190640194.003.0005","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/actrade/9780190640194.003.0005","url":null,"abstract":"“On the present and future of American poetry” argues that the contemporary poets who follow Robert Lowell’s model of blending public and private history often turn against the particular hierarchies that made the Lowell name seem “significant, illustrative, American, etc.” Instead, contemporary poets have taken up the challenge of presenting a new account of American history and culture. They introduce a new set of important names of people and places. The poets of the Black Lives Matter movement, for instance, elegize African American victims of police violence. At the same time, their poems add new variations of the two characteristics of American: the perceived need for distinctiveness and its transnationalism.","PeriodicalId":422858,"journal":{"name":"American Poetry: A Very Short Introduction","volume":"25 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-11-25","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"121787475","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2021-11-25DOI: 10.1093/actrade/9780190640194.003.0003
D. Caplan
“Convention and idiosyncrasy” shows how the successful use of recognizable artistic conventions can help a poet to enter a literature and a culture that seeks to exclude them. It can moderate skepticism, even hostility, and sanction an outsider’s admittance into a community. At the same time, respect for poetic convention hardly reigns uncontested in American literary culture. With several notable exceptions, American poetry and, even more so, its scholarly discussions value a different quality. American poets and readers alike often appreciate idiosyncrasy and the associated values of disruption, originality, innovation, strangeness, and surprise. Poets as different Phillis Wheatley, Emily Dickinson, Adrienne Rich, Charles Bernstein, and Maggie Smith consider the competing imperatives of convention and idiosyncrasy.
{"title":"3. Convention and idiosyncrasy","authors":"D. Caplan","doi":"10.1093/actrade/9780190640194.003.0003","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/actrade/9780190640194.003.0003","url":null,"abstract":"“Convention and idiosyncrasy” shows how the successful use of recognizable artistic conventions can help a poet to enter a literature and a culture that seeks to exclude them. It can moderate skepticism, even hostility, and sanction an outsider’s admittance into a community. At the same time, respect for poetic convention hardly reigns uncontested in American literary culture. With several notable exceptions, American poetry and, even more so, its scholarly discussions value a different quality. American poets and readers alike often appreciate idiosyncrasy and the associated values of disruption, originality, innovation, strangeness, and surprise. Poets as different Phillis Wheatley, Emily Dickinson, Adrienne Rich, Charles Bernstein, and Maggie Smith consider the competing imperatives of convention and idiosyncrasy.","PeriodicalId":422858,"journal":{"name":"American Poetry: A Very Short Introduction","volume":"1 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-11-25","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"125829815","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
京公网安备 11010802042870号
京ICP备2023020795号-1
扫码关注我们
求助内容：
应助结果提醒方式：