The language(s) of poetry : Walt Whitman, Emily Dickinson, Gerard Manley Hopkins

The Resource The language(s) of poetry : Walt Whitman, Emily Dickinson, Gerard Manley Hopkins
Label
The language(s) of poetry : Walt Whitman, Emily Dickinson, Gerard Manley Hopkins
Title remainder
Walt Whitman, Emily Dickinson, Gerard Manley Hopkins
Statement of responsibility
James Olney
Creator
Subject
Language
eng
Summary
In this clear, succinct, and engaging book, noted critic James Olney explores the work of three seemingly disparate precursors of modernism - Whitman, Dickinson, and Hopkins - and establishes a set of criteria by which any reader might judge and better appreciate a poem. Considering the language of the poets' times, their unique ways with language, and what he calls the "nearly ahistorical language" of poetry, Olney arrives at three properties that form a kind of common ground in poetry, regardless of the cultural context or the era in which the poem was written. These properties are a heightened rhythmization of language, an elevated figurativity of language, and a highly personal, distinctive eccentricity that shapes both the poetic vision and the technical means used to express it. In three chapters, each focusing on one of these properties, Olney shows how the poets shaped these elements in their own distinctive ways. "Dickinsonian" verse, he notes, displays a metrical regularity reminiscent of hymns. It is also a thoroughly metaphorical poetry that works through figures of similarity and resemblance, and it reveals an unmistakable economy as well as a "darting, quicksilver" elusiveness. Whitman's highly rhythmic, but entirely nonmetrical, poetry is dominated by figures of correlation and connection. His verse, pervaded by an insatiate desire to annex the human world and universe to himself, has a sense of being neverending. Hopkins's poems are markedly rhythmic and even metrical, but not according to any traditional or inherited system of metrics. Figuratively mixed, they are highly wrought poems that observe the strictest formalities in order to subjugate unruly and explosive emotions. Throughout his discussions, Olney quotes extensively from the poetry of all three figures and also conveys much about the effect of their personal lives on their work. In plain terms that neither obfuscate nor overshadow his subjects, Olney helps us to understand better the ways in which poets defamiliarize our world and make us see it anew
Related
Member of
Cataloging source
DLC
Dewey number
811/.309
Government publication
government publication of a state province territory dependency etc
Index
index present
LC call number
PS316
LC item number
.O43 1993
Literary form
non fiction
Nature of contents
bibliography

Context

Context of The language(s) of poetry : Walt Whitman, Emily Dickinson, Gerard Manley Hopkins

Work of

Structured data from the Bibframe namespace is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License by University of Missouri Libraries. Additional terms may apply to data associated with third party namespaces.
Processing Feedback ...