History, memory, and the literary left : modern American poetry, 1935-1968 / by John Lowney.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Lowney, John, 1957-

Series:

Contemporary North American poetry series.

Contemporary North American poetry series

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

American poetry--20th century--History and criticism.

American poetry.

Right and left (Political science) in literature.

Politics and literature--United States--History--20th century.

Politics and literature.

Poets, American--20th century--Political and social views.

Poets, American.

Depressions--1929--United States.

Depressions.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (304 p.)

Edition:

1st ed.

Place of Publication:

Iowa City : University of Iowa Press, c2006.

Language Note:

English

Summary:

In this nuanced revisionist history of modern American poetry, John Lowney investigates the Depression era's impact on late modernist American poetry from the socioeconomic crisis of the 1930's through the emergence of the new social movements of the 1960's. Informed by an ongoing scholarly reconsideration of 1930's American culture and concentrating on Left writers whose historical consciousness was profoundly shaped by the Depression, World War II, and the Cold War, Lowney articulates the Left's challenges to national collective memory and redefines the importance of late modernism in American

Contents:

The janitor's poems of every day: American poetry and the 1930's

Buried history: the popular front poetics of Muriel Rukeyser's The book of the dead

Allegories of salvage: the peripheral vision of Elizabeth Bishop's North & South

Harlem Disc-tortions: the jazz memory of Langston Hughes's Montage of a dream deferred

A reportage and Redemption: the poetics of African American countermemory in Gwendolyn Brook's In the Mecca

A metamorphic palimpsest: the underground memory of Thomas McGrath's Letter to an imaginary friend

The spectre of the 1930s: George Oppen's Of being numerous and historical amnesia.

Notes:

Description based upon print version of record.

Includes bibliographical references (p. 259-277) and index.

ISBN:

9781587297335

1587297337

OCLC:

658122105