Poetry, Politics & Culture.Poetry, Politics & Culture Harold Kaplan Transaction Books 390 Campus Drive, Somerset, NJ 08873 0765803038 $39.95 transactionpub.com A new 279 page comparative analysis of the poetics po·et·ics n. (used with a sing. or pl. verb) 1. Literary criticism that deals with the nature, forms, and laws of poetry. 2. A treatise on or study of poetry or aesthetics. 3. of T.S. Eliot, Ezra Pound, Wallace Stevens, and William Carlos Williams is presented in Poetry, Politics & Culture: Argument In The Work Of Eliot, Pound, Stevens & Williams by Harold Kaplan (Professor Emeritus of English and American literature American literature, literature in English produced in what is now the United States of America. Colonial Literature American writing began with the work of English adventurers and colonists in the New World chiefly for the benefit of readers in at Northwestern University Northwestern University, mainly at Evanston, Ill.; coeducational; chartered 1851, opened 1855 by Methodists. In 1873 it absorbed Evanston College for Ladies. and formerly of Rutgers University Rutgers University, main campus at New Brunswick, N.J.; land-grant and state supported; coeducational except for Douglass College; chartered 1766 as Queen's College, opened 1771. Campuses and Facilities Rutgers maintains three campuses. and Bennington College Bennington College, at Bennington, Vt.; coeducational (originally for women); chartered 1925, opened 1932. Its curriculum is based on individual interests and needs. ). Professor Kaplan uses the work of each poet to present two basic counter viewpoints: Pound and Eliot embraced a more orthodox, expatriate view of the poetic imagination grounded in outward forms of European tradition (even in Pound's case, embracing Italian fascism
Italian Fascism (in Italian, fascismo ), while Williams and Stevens, whose poetics evolved in the wake of Emerson and Thoreau, chose a definition of poetry and poetics that was centered on nature, and transcended, or disregarded the old ideas of Christian sin, guilt, and cultural hierarchy. All four poets were seeking to redefine cultural values through poetry in a time of change and cultural and political crisis following World War I. Thus the argument becomes a mirror of opposite approaches, as seen through the poets' writings. Professor Kaplan takes the reader through a thorough consideration of each poet's background, poetics and related writings to arrive at his conclusions. Only then does he state, "If my theme has a moral conclusion it is one I have mentioned. The protagonist in the drama of poetry and life is not nature, not divinity, not history or tradition, and not a culture. It is "major man" wherever he or she is found (p. 252)." Professor Kaplan carefully lists his extra sources, including works of Emmanuel Levinas, Bakhtin, Mandelshtam, and Celan, in three Appendices ap·pen·di·ces n. A plural of appendix. and in a plethora of footnotes. Recommended for undergraduate and graduate students of American Studies, literature, poetry and history, Poetry, Politics, & Culture is not light reading, but it is very clearly written and represents definitive thinking about America's intellectual and poetic history at its finest. |
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