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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 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 at Northwestern University and formerly of Rutgers University and Bennington College). 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), 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 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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