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  • Open Daily: 10am - 10pm
    Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm

    3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
    612-822-4611

Open Daily: 10am - 10pm | Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm
3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
612-822-4611
The Obligation Toward the Difficult Whole: Postmodernist Long Poems

The Obligation Toward the Difficult Whole: Postmodernist Long Poems

McHale, Brian

Paperback

Series: Modern and Contemporary Poetics

Literary CriticismPoetry Criticism

Currently unavailable to order

ISBN10: 0817350373
ISBN13: 9780817350376
Publisher: Univ Of Alabama Pr
Published: Jan 6 2004
Pages: 314
Weight: 0.96
Height: 0.69 Width: 6.06 Depth: 8.98
Language: English

Addressing subjects as wide-ranging as angelology, the court masque, pop art, caricature, the cult of the ruin, hip-hop, Spenser's Irish policy, and the aesthetics of silence, Brian McHale pulls varied threads together to identify a repertoire of postmodernist elements characteristic of the long poems he examines.

As critic Jed Rasula explains, McHale is wonderfully resourceful in changing the subject from chapter to chapter to fit the poems discussed, and while his approach adheres to the conventions of textual exegesis, the chapters really shine as orchestrations of issues. For instance, James Merrill's The Changing Light at Sandover works unexpectedly well in raising the subject of found poetry and procedural composition; Melvin Tolson's Harlem Gallery and Edward Dorn's Gunslinger are effectively paired to demonstrate the period flavor of pastiche; Geoffrey Hill's Mercian Hymns and Armand Schwerner's The Tablets explode the modernist fixation with depth; John Ashbery's work is given a nuanced reading as proto-theory; Letter to an Imaginary Friend by Thomas McGrath provides a lucid backdrop to raise the question of political efficacy in approaching language poet Bruce Andrews; and Susan Howe's The Europe of Trusts is explored for its intertextual tapestry.

McHale shows how elements from these long poems overlap, interfere, pull in different directions, jar against, and even contradict each other; and he demonstrates how they also echo, amplify, and reinforce each other. They do not slot smoothly together like pieces in a jigsaw puzzle, but they do form (what else?) a difficult whole.

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