Mysticism in Postmodernist Long Poems
Contemplation of the Divine
Seiten
2014
Lehigh University Press (Verlag)
978-1-61146-162-6 (ISBN)
Lehigh University Press (Verlag)
978-1-61146-162-6 (ISBN)
This book examines how postmodernist writers use the long poem as a means of exploring a direct relationship with the divine. They find that they must chart individual paths of spiritual understanding informed by the culture in which they are situated.
Written from a literary critic’s perspective, Mysticism in Postmodernist Long Poems borrows insights from Religious Studies and critical theory to examine the role of spirituality in contemporary poetry, specifically the genre of the long poem. Descending from Whitman’s Song of Myself, the long poem is often considered the American twentieth-century equivalent of the epic poem, but unlike the epic, it carries few generic expectations aside from the fact that it simply must be long. This makes the form particularly pliable as a tool for spiritual inquiry. The period following World War II is often described as a secular age, but spirituality continued as a concern for poets, as evidenced by this study. These writers look beyond conventional faith systems and instead seek individual paths of understanding; they engage in mysticism, in other words. With chapters on H.D. and Brenda Hillman, Robert Duncan, James Merrill, Charles Wright, and Galway Kinnell and Gary Snyder, this study demonstrates how these poets engage the culture of consumption in the postwar years at the same time they search for opportunities for transcendence. Not content to throw over the earthly in favor of the otherworldly, these poets reject the familiar binary of the worldly and metaphysical to produce distinctive paths of spiritual understanding that fuel what Wright calls a “contemplation of the divine.”
Written from a literary critic’s perspective, Mysticism in Postmodernist Long Poems borrows insights from Religious Studies and critical theory to examine the role of spirituality in contemporary poetry, specifically the genre of the long poem. Descending from Whitman’s Song of Myself, the long poem is often considered the American twentieth-century equivalent of the epic poem, but unlike the epic, it carries few generic expectations aside from the fact that it simply must be long. This makes the form particularly pliable as a tool for spiritual inquiry. The period following World War II is often described as a secular age, but spirituality continued as a concern for poets, as evidenced by this study. These writers look beyond conventional faith systems and instead seek individual paths of understanding; they engage in mysticism, in other words. With chapters on H.D. and Brenda Hillman, Robert Duncan, James Merrill, Charles Wright, and Galway Kinnell and Gary Snyder, this study demonstrates how these poets engage the culture of consumption in the postwar years at the same time they search for opportunities for transcendence. Not content to throw over the earthly in favor of the otherworldly, these poets reject the familiar binary of the worldly and metaphysical to produce distinctive paths of spiritual understanding that fuel what Wright calls a “contemplation of the divine.”
Joe Moffett is assistant professor of English at Kentucky State University.
Preface
Introduction: Mysticism and the Twentieth-Century Long Poem
Chapter 1: The Late Modernism of H.D.’s Trilogy and a Postmodernist Response: Brenda Hillman’s Death Tractates
Chapter 2: “In Language I Encounter God”: Robert Duncan’s Textual Mysticism in “Passages”
Chapter 3: The Kitsch Man Cometh: Myth and Popular Culture in James Merrill’s The Changing Light at Sandover
Chapter 4: Charles Wright’s “God Fearing Agnostic” in The Appalachian Book of the Dead
Chapter 5: Questioning Western Spirituality: Galway Kinnell’s The Book of Nightmares and Gary Snyder’s Mountains and Rivers without End
Bibliography
About the Author
Erscheint lt. Verlag | 28.12.2014 |
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Verlagsort | Cranbury |
Sprache | englisch |
Maße | 164 x 233 mm |
Gewicht | 408 g |
Themenwelt | Literatur ► Lyrik / Dramatik ► Lyrik / Gedichte |
Geisteswissenschaften ► Religion / Theologie | |
Geisteswissenschaften ► Sprach- / Literaturwissenschaft ► Anglistik / Amerikanistik | |
ISBN-10 | 1-61146-162-6 / 1611461626 |
ISBN-13 | 978-1-61146-162-6 / 9781611461626 |
Zustand | Neuware |
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