The violence within/the violence without : Wallace Stevens and the emergence of a revolutionary poetics / Jacqueline Vaught Brogan.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Brogan, Jacqueline Vaught, 1952-

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Stevens, Wallace, 1879-1955--Criticism and interpretation.

Stevens, Wallace.

Stevens, Wallace, 1879-1955--Political and social views.

Stevens, Wallace, 1879-1955.

World War, 1939-1945--United States--Literature and the war.

World War, 1939-1945.

Revolutionary poetry, American--History and criticism.

Revolutionary poetry, American.

Violence in literature.

War in literature.

Political and social views.

Criticism and interpretation.

Physical Description:

xiii, 200 pages : illustrations ; 24 cm

Place of Publication:

Athens : University of Georgia Press, [2003]

Summary:

Wallace Stevens (1879-1955), one of the leading poets of the twentieth century, continues to influence a wide range of poets writing today. However, an image persists of Stevens as an aesthete who was politically removed from his times and who also exhibited sexist and racist tendencies. Jacqueline Vaught Brogan offers careful readings from across the Stevens canon to demonstrate that, contrary to such enduring earlier assessments, Stevens's work over the years shows poetic and political changes that merge with his growing ethical concerns. Brogan traces Stevens's evolving poetic practices along three major lines that often intersected. She situates the beginnings of Stevens's development within his early resistance to the pressures of "reality" on the imagination, an artistic stand that pitted him against the "objective" poetry exemplified in the work of William Carlos Williams. Then, in the midst of Stevens's career, World War II moved him forward with new poetic responsibilities both to witness the current world and to guide readers into their future. The emergence of an almost feminist vision defines Stevens's third line of development. Finally, in addition to identifying these developmental stages, Brogan addresses the undercurrent of race throughout Stevens's work. According to Brogan, Stevens not only changed but matured over time. What began as an aesthetic "violence within," or a girding against such "violence without" as social unrest and war, rapidly evolved during Stevens's middle years into a set of perceptions and practices increasingly responsive to his times.

Contents:

Chapter 1 Poems against His Climate 9

Chapter 2 A Critical Misprision 24

Chapter 3 Formal Resistance 44

Chapter 4 The Poet in/under History 57

Chapter 5 A Slow (Re) Turn 80

Chapter 6 Opening the Field 96

Chapter 7 Planets on the Table 121

Chapter 8 More and More Human 141.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages 181-189) and index.

ISBN:

0820325198

OCLC:

51505300