The motive for metaphor : brief essays on poetry and psychoanalysis / Henry M. Seiden.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Seiden, Henry M., 1940- author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Poetry--Psychological aspects.

Poetry.

Psychoanalysis and literature.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (165 p.)

Edition:

1st

Place of Publication:

London : Routledge, 2018.

Summary:

This book is a small anthology: each chapter a kind of meditation-on poetry and psychoanalysis; on a poem, sometimes two; on poetry in general; on thought itself. The poems are beautiful, some are contemporary, some are classical and well worth a reader's attention. "The motive for metaphor" is the title of a short poem of Wallace Stevens in which he says he is "happy" with the subtleties of experience. He likes what he calls the "half colours of quarter things," as opposed to the certainties, the hard primary "reds" and "blues." To grasp and make sense of what is elusive (and beautiful), that is, for the essential and puzzling condition of poetry, we are obliged to make metaphors. The same is perhaps true of psychoanalysis-this is the essential argument of the book. The chapters were originally poetry columns that the author wrote for Psychologist-Psychoanalyst and Division/Review (both journals of the Division of Psychoanalysis of the American Psychological Association).

Contents:

COVER

CONTENTS

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

FOREWORD

INTRODUCTION

CHAPTER I Jokes, fathers, grief, and angels: a poem by Sherman Alexie

CHAPTER II Speaking of pain: Yehuda Amichai

CHAPTER III A sad story, briefly told: a poem by Simon Armitage

CHAPTER IV "Finding in the sound a thought": Matthew Arnold's "Dover beach"

CHAPTER V Auden's "Lullaby" and Winnnicott's "Hate …"

CHAPTER VI An awakening: a poem by Elizabeth Bishop

CHAPTER VII On the pleasure in play: the poetry of Billy Collins

CHAPTER VIII Tyger time: e. e. cummings on conscientious objection

CHAPTER IX On idea and image and "the space between": a poem by Albert Goldbarth

CHAPTER X "When your heart cries out, being carried off …": a poem by Eamon Grennan

CHAPTER XI "Old pond, frog jump in …": the genius of haiku

CHAPTER XII Postmodern metaphor: a poem by Robert Hass

CHAPTER XIII The air of another time and place: a poem by Seamus Heaney

CHAPTER XIV Poetry as argument: a poem by Tony Hoagland

CHAPTER XV Marie Howe on "What the living do"

CHAPTER XVI Kenneth Koch on psychoanalysis in the "glory days"

CHAPTER XVII An old man's love song: a poem by Stanley Kunitz

CHAPTER XVIII "They fuck you up …" Philip Larkin's "This be the verse"

CHAPTER XIX The art of the ordinary: Philip Levine on "What work is"

CHAPTER XX How otherness dissolves: a poem by Thomas Lux

CHAPTER XXI Mysterious tears: a poem by Rose McLarney

CHAPTER XXII A meditation without punctuation by W. S. Merwin

CHAPTER XXIII Narrative as metaphor: Sharon Olds

CHAPTER XXIV "The meaning of simplicity": a poem by Yannis Ritsos

CHAPTER XXV Saying a lot with a little: the poetry of Kay Ryan

CHAPTER XXVI On the love of beauty-and a poem by Charles Simic

CHAPTER XXVII When the narrative changes: a poem by A. E. Stallings.

CHAPTER XXVIII Metaphors for mind: the poet Gerald Stern

CHAPTER XXIX Negative capability and Wallace Stevens's "The emperor of ice-cream"

CHAPTER XXX Tracks in the snow: a poem of the Sung dynasty

CHAPTER XXXI On style: Tennyson and Cavafy, and intersubjective engagement

CHAPTER XXXII Empathic music: a poem of William Carlos Williams

CHAPTER XXXIII The pathetic fallacy: William Carlos Williams and Emily Dickinson

CHAPTER XXXIV W. B. Yeats on "Where love has pitched his mansion …".

Notes:

Description based upon print version of record.

Includes bibliographical references.

Description based on online resource; title from PDF title page (ebrary, viewed January 25, 2016).

ISBN:

0-429-90726-5

0-429-48249-3

1-78241-494-0

9780429482496

OCLC:

934770747