Walks in the world : representation and experience in modern American poetry / Roger Gilbert.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Gilbert, Roger, 1960- author.

Series:

Princeton Legacy Library

Princeton Legacy Library ; 1155

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

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

American poetry.

Walking in literature.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (0 p.)

Edition:

Course Book

Place of Publication:

Princeton, New Jersey : Princeton University Press, [1991]

Language Note:

English

Summary:

In the twentieth century no form of experience has been more frequently taken up by poets eager to capture both the openness and fluidity of life and the aesthetic closure of an artwork than that of a walk. Examining the walk poem, Roger Gilbert contends that at its heart is the "desire to keep what we have lived." What is the appeal of the walk poem for modern American poets? According to Gilbert, it provides a ready-made frame within which to explore the full range of individual consciousness as it responds to and reflects on the world immediately at hand. The unstructured, plotless character of the walk allows poets to move freely from place to place, image to image, thought to thought. Suggesting that the walk poem strikes a compromise between the American obsession with process or movement and more traditionally mimetic concerns, Gilbert shows how it enables the poet to apprehend the world as horizon rather than landscape. Through perceptive and extended analyses of walk poems by Frost, Stevens, Williams, Roethke, Bishop, O'Hara, Snyder, Ammons, and Ashbery, he uncovers a spectrum of representational strategies for transforming passing experiences into the more lasting substance of poetry. Walks in the World addresses anyone who takes poetry seriously.Originally published in 1991.The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.

Contents:

Frontmatter

CONTENTS

PREFACE AND ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

INTRODUCTION A Walk Is a Poem, A Poem Is a Walk

ONE. Robert Frost The Walk as Parable

TWO. Wallace Stevens: The Walk as Occasion

THREE. William Carlos Williams: The Walk as Music

FOUR. Theodore Roethke and Elizabeth Bishop: The Walk as Revelation

FIVE. Frank O'Hara and Gary Snyder: The Walk as Sample

SIX. A. R. Ammons and John Ashbery: The Walk as Thinking

CONCLUSION The Walk and the World

EPILOGUE. Some Further Walks

INDEX

Notes:

Description based upon print version of record.

Description based on online resource; title from PDF title page (publisher's Web site, viewed 08. Jul 2019)

Description based on print version record.

Includes bibliographical references (pages [267]-286) and index.

ISBN:

9780691631974

0691631972

9780691602493

0691602492

9781400861699

1400861691

OCLC:

889251541