Red modernism : American poetry and the spirit of communism / Mark Steven.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Steven, Mark, author.

Series:

Hopkins studies in modernism

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

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

American poetry.

Modernism (Literature)--United States.

Modernism (Literature).

United States.

Communism and literature.

Genre:

Criticism, interpretation, etc.

Physical Description:

viii, 254 pages ; 24 cm.

Place of Publication:

Baltimore, Maryland : Johns Hopkins University Press, 2017.

Summary:

"In Red Modernism, Mark Steven asserts that modernism was highly attuned--and aesthetically responsive--to the overall spirit of communism. He considers the maturation of American poetry as a longitudinal arc, one that roughly followed the rise of the USSR through the Russian Revolution and its subsequent descent into Stalinism, opening up a hitherto underexplored domain in the political history of avant-garde literature. In doing so, Steven amplifies the resonance among the universal idea of communism, the revolutionary socialist state, and the American modernist poem. Focusing on three of the most significant figures in modernist poetry--Ezra Pound, William Carlos Williams, and Louis Zukofsky--Steven provides a theoretical and historical introduction to modernism's unique sense of communism while revealing how communist ideals and references were deeply embedded in modernist poetry. Moving between these poets and the work of T. S. Eliot, Langston Hughes, Muriel Rukeyser, Gertrude Stein, Wallace Stevens, and many others, the book combines a detailed analysis of technical devices and poetic values with a rich political and economic context. Persuasively charting a history of the avant-garde modernist poem in relation to communism, beginning in the 1910s and reaching into the 1940s, Red Modernism is an audacious examination of the twinned history of politics and poetry"-- Provided by publisher.

Contents:

1 Introduction: Modernism's Communism 1

2 Factive Revolution / Ezra Pound Pound, Ezra 37

3 Moscow on the Passaic / William Carlos Williams Williams, William Carlos 97

4 Cosmic Communism, Cybernetic Socialism / Louis Zukofsky Zukofsky, Louis 162.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN:

9781421423579

142142357X

OCLC:

983640227