Poetic Culture Research Articles

The Digital Miscellanies Index: Mapping an Evolving Poetic Culture

The Digital Miscellanies Index:Mapping an Evolving Poetic Culture Abigail Williams (bio) The Digital Miscellanies Index, http://digitalmiscellaniesindex.org, is a three-year project designed to create a freely available online database of approximately fourteen hundred poetic miscellanies published during the course of the eighteenth century. Funded by the Leverhulme Trust, it is led by [End Page 165] Dr. Abigail Williams and Dr. Jennifer Batt, and is based at the Faculty of English Language and Literature, University of Oxford. Oxford University Computing and Library Services, in collaboration with Gnostyx Research, created and developed the database. It is due for completion in the summer of 2013. Its contents are based on a comprehensive new bibliography of eighteenth-century poetic miscellanies compiled by Michael F. Suarez, SJ. The Value of Miscellanies Critical trends of the past thirty or so years have seen a huge rise in interest in non-canonical, little-known, yet often highly important, areas of poetry. Many poems were published individually, but they went on to enjoy an afterlife in the miscellany culture of the period. Poetic miscellanies are vital to understanding the diversity of eighteenth-century literary culture, reflecting fashions, popular taste, and the literary market. They were the form in which many ordinary people would have read poetry, and they offer insights into readers and consumers of the past. As one of the most visible points of contact between the shaping of the literary canon and the commercial demands of print culture, they represent a particularly important and popular mediation of poetry. Yet they have been largely neglected, because of their bewildering number and variety: though there were several thousand published between 1700-1800, the contents of most of these are relatively unknown. In his influential New Oxford Book of Eighteenth-Century Verse (1984), Roger Lonsdale asserts that "we still know very little" about "the landscape of eighteenth-century poetry" (xxxv) because of our ignorance of the innumerable poetic miscellanies of the period. Almost thirty years later, we do not know much more about the specific contents of these miscellanies, and so their significance remains untapped. Scholarship concerned with poetic reception still relies largely upon the same handful of anthologies and miscellanies for evidence of popularity of individual poems or authors, particularly with regard to well-known collections like Robert Dodsley's six-volume Collection of Poems by Several Hands (1748-58) or Thomas D'Urfey's Pills to Purge Melancholy (1719). It is impossible to map the development of the literary canon and the changing nature of eighteenth-century poetics using such a tiny sample as an index of popular taste. [End Page 166] The Value of a Database The Digital Miscellanies Index will, where possible, record every poem in every surviving miscellany from 1700-80, enabling researchers to ask very precise questions about texts, readers, and publishers, and to use that information to map the often unpredictable shape of eighteenth-century poetic culture. The combination of bibliographical and statistical data it will provide will enable scholars to consider the extent to which the apparent popularity of individual poems and authors is a product of commercially driven textual transmission. It will also allow users to investigate the relationship between readership and poetic taste. Each miscellany will be categorized under fields such as format, price, place of publication, and gender of author, and the bibliographical information recorded about each compilation will enable researchers to see how the variables of gender, region, and class have an effect on the reception and consumption of literature in the period. We have recently moved the data out of a relational database, and used it to populate an eXist database, which is augmented with a full-text search index. This will enable significant flexibility in the representation of the material we have captured. User results will be readily available for future data mining and data visualization, and by capturing the data in Extensible Markup Language (XML), we anticipate the long-term affordability and sustainability of the project. The Digital Miscellanies Index will effectively allow us to construct a data-driven reception history of British poetry in this period. It is already producing results that challenge long-held assumptions about the nature of...

A Note on the William Carlos Williams Collection at The Poetry Collection of the University Libraries, University at Buffalo, The State University of New York

A Note on the William Carlos Williams Collection at The Poetry Collection of the University Libraries, University at Buffalo, The State University of New York James Maynard, Associate Curator When Charles David Abbott, professor of English and director of the university libraries, founded the Poetry Collection in the mid-1930s at what was then the University of Buffalo, he set out to create for future scholars an exhaustive collection of modern poetry. Abbott began by collecting first editions of twentieth-century Anglophone poetry and soon thereafter expanded his acquisitions to include little magazines and—an act of genuine foresight—the manuscripts, or what he liked to call the "worksheets," of American and English poets. One of the first poets Abbott solicited was William Carlos Williams. In a letter dated 8 December 1936, he asked the poet to consider donating an example of his work in manuscript. Williams replied that at the time he didn't have anything on hand, having discarded most of his drafts as they were copied, but agreed to send materials in the future. By May of 1940 he was unpacking surviving items from his attic in Rutherford, New Jersey and sending them to Buffalo. Along the way Abbott and Williams formed a personal relationship that would last until Abbott's death in 1961. Over the years nearly 200 items of correspondence passed from the Williams family to the Abbotts. And, as recounted in his Autobiography, Williams and his wife stayed on several occasions as personal guests at the Gratwick estate, which was owned by the family of Abbott's wife, Theresa Gratwick Abbott. Williams's experiences at the Gratwick estate, and in particular its significance for his writing, is discussed in detail in Emily Mitchell Wallace's essay "Musing in the Highlands and Valleys: The Poetry of Gratwick Farm," published in the Spring 1982 issue of the William Carlos Williams Review. [End Page 205] Over seventy-five years later, the Poetry Collection is the library of record for twentieth- and now twenty-first-century poetry in English and holds one of the world's largest collections of poetry first editions, little magazines, broadsides, anthologies, and other publications; more than 150 archives and manuscript collections from a wide range of poets, presses, magazines, and organizations; and substantial collections of artwork, audio recordings, mail art, visual and concrete poetry, photographs, and zines. Today, the Collection continues its original mission of acquiring the publications and papers from writers at both the center and the margins of poetic culture, and serves as an active research center for all facets of modern and contemporary poetry. Finding its place alongside the papers of such writers as James Joyce, Robert Graves, and Wyndham Lewis, the William Carlos Williams Collection is to this day one of the premier collections in the Poetry Collection. Totaling approximately 20,000 pages, the Williams Collection contains the manuscripts for 416 individual poems, 128 items of creative prose including several drafts for the plays A Dream of Love (1948) and Many Loves (1942), and 159 items of critical prose; notebooks; manuscript arrangements for The Wedge (1944) and other works; the working papers for Books I and II of Paterson; nearly 1,200 letters of Williams's correspondence from and in some cases to individuals such as Charles Abbott, James Laughlin, Robert McAlmon, Marianne Moore, Ezra Pound, Alva Turner, Louis Zukofsky, and many others; and other miscellaneous items. In 1982 Williams's letters to his son William Eric Williams were added to the collection. Supplementing these archival materials are Williams's desk and typewriter and the Poetry Collection's complete set of first editions of Williams's books and virtually every book of Williams criticism. Most of these materials are described in detail in Neil Baldwin and Steven L. Meyers's The Manuscripts and Letters of William Carlos Williams in the Poetry Collection of The Lockwood Memorial Library, State University of New York at Buffalo: A Descriptive Catalogue (Boston: G.K. Hall, 1978), which is still the collection's primary finding aid. Comprising over 22 linear feet of material, the Williams Collection is arranged in thirteen series: Series I. Poems—Series II. Creative prose—Series III. Critical prose—Series IV...

Remnants of Urdu poetic culture and politics of language in Anita Desai's 'In custody'

The performance of ESL students in English language public examinations may not be unconnected with lack of proper comprehension of what is read. More specifically, performance in the comprehension section in public examinations such as the School Certificate/Senior School Certificate Examinations in Nigeria is appalling. Students’ performance in the West Africa Examination Council’s conducted examinations confirms this fact and also points to the reality that the stereotyped method of teaching the language is no longer effective. The method is not only drab, but has also failed to produce the expected result. In this paper, efforts have been made to look at the possibility of methods that have not been fully explored up till now. There are suggestions of gradual stages in the teaching of reading comprehension, right from the Junior School to Senior School in a six-year post-primary education system. The paper also considers the place of motivation in an ESL comprehension lesson and the teaching of different types of question that are often tested in the West Africa Examination Council’s conducted Senior School Certificate public Examinations. The different methods of teaching new words have equally been suggested. Finally, a suggestion is made on how the time allotted to the English Language on the school time-table can be effectively utilized for optimal value. It is concluded that if Nigeria and other countries that use English as a second language is not to be left behind in the technological revolution currently going on in the world, the teaching and learning of the language should be given more serious consideration, not only because it has become the second language of many developing countries, but because it is a tool in the successful acquisition of knowledge. Key words: ESL classroom, reading, comprehension.

The sermons of ‘Alī ibn Abī Ṭālib at the confluence of the core Islamic teachings of the Qur’an and the oral, nature-based cultural ethos of seventh century Arabia

Sermons attributed to ‘Alī ibn Abī Ṭālib (c. 600-661, first Shi‘a imam and fourth Sunni caliph) promoted core Qur’anic doctrine and ethics through an aesthetic steeped in the oral, nature-based, poetic culture of seventh-century Arabia. Using traditional Arabian metaphors of camels, watering holes, and pithy, rhythmic, orality-grounded cadences, ‘Ali urged his audience to worship the One God, follow the guidance of His prophet Muhammad, shun worldliness, perform good deeds, and prepare for the imminent hereafter. Through a close reading of his most celebrated discourses, this paper explores these teachings and their religious and cultural underpinnings.

Soundscape: its theory and praxis in Chinese classical garden

In this paper, an unique soundscape concept in Chinese classical garden is explicated from theory and praxis levers, which is based on the traditional “Harmony” culture, with the philosophical background of Confucianism, Taoism and Buddhism, and the character of the aesthetic refining and gardening construction experience together up. The general aim of which is creating a artistic conception with nature aesthetics and poetic culture to conduct people's life to archive the highest state. This paper firstly introduces the formation and development of the concept of Chinese classical garden soundscape, and its related social and cultural reasons are investigated as well. And then, the technical logic contained in garden construction rules are sorted out. So the unique characteristic of soundscape theory and praxis in Chinese classical garden are explicated. Key Words: Chinese Classical Garden; Soundscape; Theory; Praxis

Traduire la culture poétique du français en anglais

That literary texts appear to be more difficult to translate than technical ones is no longer a subject of debate. This truth is fundamentally as a result of obvious challenges the literary translator has to face, since he is under the obligation to translate not only the literal meaning of his source text, but also its literary style. Even within the literary field of translation, if the translator of prose or drama rarely has an easy task, the translator of poetry is likely to meet harder obstacles in the course of his exercise. Poetry — especially when it has to do with traditional poems – appears, thus, the most dreaded terrain for the translator.<p>This article presents a comparative study of the poetic culture of French and English with the principal objective of demystifying the theoretical and practical problems associated with poetic translation. Supported by a critical analysis of an English translation of a French sonnet, the paper argues that the work of the poetic translator would be made more simplified if priority is given to the culture of the target language. The article thus recommends faithfulness to the poetic culture of the target language in order to produce a translation that will be acceptable to the reader of that language.<p>

Beyond the Slave Narrative: Sex, Politics, and Manuscripts in the Haitian Revolution (review)

Reviewed by: Beyond the Slave Narrative: Sex, Politics, and Manuscripts in the Haitian Revolution Doris Kadish Jenson, Deborah . Beyond the Slave Narrative: Sex, Politics, and Manuscripts in the Haitian Revolution. Liverpool: University of Liverpool Press, 2010. Pp. 322. ISBN: 978-1-84631-497-1 Colonial and postcolonial studies have gained significant new breadth and depth with the publication of Deborah Jenson's Beyond the Slave Narrative: Sex, Politics, and Manuscripts in the Haitian Revolution. This pathbreaking book brings to light the rich but largely neglected Francophone record of black literacy from the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. Rectifying the anglocentric view that slave narratives were the only or most authentic form of black voices from the past, Jenson provides probing analyses of Creole poetry, political discourse, and other materials. Jenson finds in the cultural heritage of the past the basis for a fuller understanding of Haiti's past. Beyond the Slave Narrative is divided into two parts of unequal length. The first and longest, "Authorizing the Political Sphere," is devoted to an analysis of the discursive structures in texts by Toussaint Louverture, Dessalines, and Henry Christophe from 1791 through the early years of the creation of the Haitian nation in 1804. The second, shorter part, "Authorizing the Libertine Sphere," is devoted to poems and songs that give voice and agency to Afro-diasporic women in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. The considerable differences between the two corpuses that Jenson has chosen to discuss requires justification, which she provides. As explained in the introduction, in both cases the focus is on subaltern voices seeking to forge a free consciousness, to "un-become" the legal property of others, and to challenge Euro-American hegemony. Through political discourse, the founders of the Haitian nation used language to construct themselves and the nation. Libertine verse provides access to women's power and intelligence in conducting sexual and social transactions. Both corpuses have been undervalued if not ignored altogether. Because the "authorship" of the texts is typically collaborative, a notion that Jenson explores with great sophistication, they have been attributed in some cases to whites who published them or even, as with Toussaint's documents, not even considered "writing" at all. In eight striking illustrations, or "textaul artifacts," Jenson shows exactly what Toussaint, Dessalines, [End Page 151] and others put on paper. She also explains in detail her work in the archives that enabled her to unearth obscure material. Graduate students and scholars who plan to continue her work will be inspired and instructed by such explanations. The five chapters in Part I move from Toussaint Louverture, through Dessalines and Henry Christophe. It begins with an analysis of Toussaint's "will to literary power" and the decolonization strategy he used to challenge European universalism. Through correspondence and public statements, Toussaint sought to forge a dialogue and establish parity with metropolitan and colonial leadership. Three chapters are then devoted to Dessalines, whom Jenson identifies as "in many ways the star of this book" and whose legacy she links to that of Malcolm X. In Chapter 2 Jenson provides an analysis of the discursive strategies deployed in the service of Dessalines's radical anti-colonial and postcolonial philosophy. She then goes on in Chapters 3 and 4 to examine what the historical record tells, directly or in some cases obliquely, of his significance in the United States, the Caribbean, and Latin America. Chapter 5 shows that a logical extension of the forced migration that occurred during slavery was the practice of kidnapping which afflicted members of the families of black leaders: notably the sons of Christophe and Toussaint. For Jenson "the phenomenon of Napoleanic kidnapping" exemplifies the battle for cultural command of the transatlantic world that was taking place between Haiti and the métropole. The three chapters in Part II focus on the "thriving, intertextual, but generally verbal poetic culture" of women of color in pre- and post-independence Haiti. These chapters provide textual examples in Creole accompanied by English-language translation. Chapter 6 questions what constituted Haitian culture at the time and explores the theoretical implications of the notions of "authentic" and "indigenous." Jenson asserts that in a racially hybrid Haitian context...

The Review of English Studies Prize Essay * 'It Ought not to be Lost to the World': The Transmission and Consumption of Eighteenth-Century Lyric Verse

‘The Midsummer Wish’ is a rather ordinary lyric poem, an unremarkable example of the retirement mode featuring generic diction and uncontroversial subject matter, and lacking a famous author, political edge, satirical bite or much in the way of sexual tension. Yet despite its apparent ordinariness, this poem had a remarkable existence in the eighteenth century: it was reproduced at least fifty times in newspapers, magazines, pamphlets, miscellanies and songbooks, and in broadside and slip-song format. It was copied into manuscript miscellanies, set to music, performed on stage, and alluded to in satirical prints. It attracted the attention of scholars and poets, it was abridged and bowdlerized, and it became tangled up in a Jacobite scandal. It was attributed, at various points, to an anonymous dead student, Stephen Duck, George Granville, Samuel Croxall, and Thomas Chatterton. Tracing the publication and reception of ‘The Midsummer Wish’, this article explores what this remarkable story might reveal about the landscape of eighteenth-century poetic culture.

Existe-t-il une poétique de la culture européenne ?

If there is one inherent characteristic to novel during the period of time elapsed between the two World Wars it would be its tendency to de- construct both men’s representations and his surroundings in order to postpone Western decline and save creation. This existential and spiri- tual crisis, inherent to a pursuit of “sense,” leads to a deep change in the literary views Europe has on the world and on itself. Starting from the postulate that a “European literary model” is recognized through a group of signs typical of a civilization crash, the author analyzes a generation of writers disillusioned about their time who are sketching a critical production from where emerge some of the most important texts in the European literature. This article proposes an evaluation of the fundamental questions that are defining poetics of the European culture during the period elapsed between the two world wars through four point argument.

Страница из поэтической кантианы

Poems devoted to Kant give different poetical-philosophical interpretations of both the personality of philosopher and his teaching on God and human being. In his poems about Kant, poet Alexander Kushner demonstrates theological agnosticism, which correlates with Kant's own theories. In the poem Kant's Mask and the aphorisms Kant Unmasked, Vl. Mikushevich addresses Kant's attitude to God from the religious-philosophical point of view. Such dialogue at a high level of poetic and philosophical culture enriches these cultures.

Interperformative Relationships in Ingrian Oral Poetry

The aim of this article is twofold: to introduce the Ingrian poetic singing culture, which is often referred to when discussing Kalevala-metric poetry, and to discuss aspects of performance and intertextuality. The central point here is to highlight that the meanings of a song are created on the various levels of performance; not only is the text itself worth studying, but likewise the other performance features, such as musical structures, singing conventions, and performance situations warrant analysis. After referring to the most central theoretical thoughts and concepts, I will introduce the geographical area and then proceed to a general portrait of Ingrian Kalevalametric poetry with its typical contexts and conventions of use. As case studies, I will first discuss the interperformative relationships and situational stylistics of West Ingrian swinging songs3 and lullabies, and then focus on the various uses of one poetic theme, The Sad Widow. With this general introduction of Ingrian oral poetry and the treatment of some particular cases, I hope to draw a picture of some aspects of situational variation and referentiality in performance.

Thinking poetics: essays on George Oppen

George Oppen, a crucial figure in the founding of the Objectivist movement, is considered by many critics and poets to be one of the foremost innovators of 20th-century American poetry. Oppen's Of Being Numerous won the Pulitzer Prize for poetry in 1969, and his influence on subsequent generations of poets has been profound. The contributors to this unique collection of essays are both poets and critics who adopt a variety of critical stances. Some write as fellow poets who knew Oppen well during his lifetime and who have been deeply influenced by his example in their own work. Others write as poet-critics affiliated with the Language Poetry movement and bring to Oppen's work a keen appreciation for its relevance to contemporary avant - garde poetics. Still others come to Oppen as members of a younger generation of readers and writers working to articulate a new stage in Oppen's reception. The result is a rich and productive critical dialogue, touching on many of the most significant facets of Oppen's life and work. Thinking Poetics is a testament to Oppen's place in 20th and 21st - century poetic culture and an essential volume for anyone interested in Oppen's life or poetry.

Transcending the New Woman: Multiethnic Narratives in the Progressive Era; Native Speakers: Ella Deloria, Zora Neale Hurston, Jovita González, and the Poetics of Culture

Book Review| June 01 2010 Transcending the New Woman: Multiethnic Narratives in the Progressive Era; Native Speakers: Ella Deloria, Zora Neale Hurston, Jovita González, and the Poetics of Culture Robin E. Field Robin E. Field Search for other works by this author on: This Site Google American Literature (2010) 82 (2): 432–434. https://doi.org/10.1215/00029831-2010-012 Cite Icon Cite Share Icon Share Facebook Twitter LinkedIn MailTo Permissions Search Site Citation Robin E. Field; Transcending the New Woman: Multiethnic Narratives in the Progressive Era; Native Speakers: Ella Deloria, Zora Neale Hurston, Jovita González, and the Poetics of Culture. American Literature 1 June 2010; 82 (2): 432–434. doi: https://doi.org/10.1215/00029831-2010-012 Download citation file: Zotero Reference Manager EasyBib Bookends Mendeley Papers EndNote RefWorks BibTex toolbar search Search Dropdown Menu toolbar search search input Search input auto suggest filter your search Books & JournalsAll JournalsAmerican Literature Search Advanced Search The text of this article is only available as a PDF. © 2010 by Duke University Press2010 Article PDF first page preview Close Modal You do not currently have access to this content.

Native Speakers: Ella Deloria, Zora Neale Hurston, Jovita González, and the Poetics of Culture , and: Cultural Sites of Critical Insight: Philosophy, Aesthetics, and African American and Native American Women's Writings , and: Afro-Future Females: Black Writers Chart Science Fiction's Newest New-Wave Trajectory (review)

Native Speakers: Ella Deloria, Zora Neale Hurston, Jovita González, and the Poetics of Culture , and: Cultural Sites of Critical Insight: Philosophy, Aesthetics, and African American and Native American Women's Writings , and: Afro-Future Females: Black Writers Chart Science Fiction's Newest New-Wave Trajectory (review)

“A Few Cool Years After These”: Midlife at Mid-century in Lorine Niedecker's Lyrics

In its restoration of the poet’s history of writing, revision and publishing, Lorine Niedecker: Collected Works answers many important questions about Niedecker’s poetry and the extent to which it registers the sexist attitudes and tropes of the male poetic tradition.1 Jenny Penberthy’s careful, deliberate editing places Nie decker’s published poems alongside unpublished work she was writing at that same time so that a poem published in isolation in a magazine or with other poems the author also selected as her best for a book collection returns to its original context. Thus, with the help of Penberthy’s copious notes, a reader gains some insight into Niedecker’s — and literary editors’ — judgments about her poems, what she considered worthy or wise to share, and what she kept to herself. Moreover, these reconstructions often make obvious her poetry’s exploration of contemporary social pressures and ideals, particularly the ideas, assumptions and practices developing in the public mind and the ways they extend to and resonate with those established in a presumably isolated poetic culture. Radical Vernacular: Lorine Niedecker and the Poetics of Place, the 2008 collection of essays on Niedecker, includes a number of approaches appreciative of Niedecker’s involvement with public matters and popular culture, including her poetry’s interactions with jazz and blues, John Cage’s music and Buddhism, Warhol’s pop art, war and politics, and mental depression. 2 In the context of a writing process in which Lorine Niedecker reworked and relocated many poems for decades (CW 13–16), even early poems that scholars tend to read primarily as Niedecker’s personal expressions now reveal a concern with the social and historical frameworks through which the poetic tradition asserts itself as a masculine domain in which women have little authority.

The Beginning of Literati Poetry: Four Poems from First-century BCE China

AbstractThis article examines a set of four tetrasyllabic poems from the first century BCE, situating them between the ancient poetry of the Shijing and the medieval poetry that would appear two centuries later. The author outlines the emergence of a learned elite in the latter half of the Western Han and shows how the intellectual and socio-political background of this group is instantiated in the poems. As statements of a classicist mentality ascendant in the late Western Han, the poems stand firmly in their age, but as products of this newly emerging group they bear definite connection to the literati poetry of medieval China. Thus, the poems offer a viewpoint onto both the scholarly culture of the first century BCE and the poetic culture of early medieval China.

Recovering the Snorra Edda : On Playing Gods, Loki, and the Importance of History

It might seem rather uncreative to those familiar with Rene Girarďs thinking to deal with the story of the murder of Baldr as told in the Edda by Snorri Sturluson, one of the foremost representatives of the extraordinary poetic culture of medieval Iceland, from a Girardian point of view. This is obviously because Girard himself has analyzed this story in detail in a chapter of his book The Scapegoat.1 Everything else could either be seen as an unnecessary addition to what has already been saidat most a contribution of interesting but in the end not substantial detailsor a (perhaps hypercritical) objection to the mimetic theory as a whole from the viewpoint of another theoretical approach, in order to detect the heuristic or hermeneutical weaknesses of the mimetic theory. I do not intend to do either. Nevertheless, I will try to outline

Beyond Subversion: German Jewry and the Poetics of Middlebrow Culture

Following in the footsteps of Hannah Arendt's celebration of the “conscious pariah” in her seminal writings of the 1940s, the field of German‐Jewish literary and cultural studies has concerned itself overwhelmingly with the subversive dimension of the German‐Jewish experience. Over the last several decades, figures as diverse as Rahel Varnhagen, Heinrich Heine and even Moses Mendelssohn have been rehabilitated as intellectuals who issued fundamental challenges to the homogenizing and assimilatory project of modernity. In this way, scholarship has often fashioned Jews not as modernity's passive victims but as its most prescient critics. For the vast majority of German Jews in the nineteenth century, nevertheless, German culture was not perceived as monolithic, and a self‐conscious celebration of subversion hardly proved to be the mantra governing their entry into the worlds beyond traditional Jewish culture. Looking at a set of fictional texts by Sara Hirsch Guggenheim, this essay lays out an alternative model for studying German‐Jewish culture, the poetics of acculturation and the complexity of minority identity in nineteenth‐century Germany

Thomas Söderqvist (ed.), The history and poetics of scientific biography, Science, Technology and Culture, 1700–1945 series, Aldershot and Burlington, VT, Ashgate, 2007, pp. xv, 270, illus., £55.00, (hardback 978- 0-7546-5181-9).

Thomas Söderqvist (ed.), The history and poetics of scientific biography, Science, Technology and Culture, 1700–1945 series, Aldershot and Burlington, VT, Ashgate, 2007, pp. xv, 270, illus., £55.00, (hardback 978- 0-7546-5181-9). - Volume 53 Issue 1

Gendered Muses and the Representation of Social Space in Robert Duncan’s Poetry

R ecent criticism has shown the importance of Robert Duncan's correspondence with Denise Levertov for understanding the evolution of cold war poetics from the domestic focus of 1950s poetic culture through the political poetry of the 1960s.1 Duncan wrote both poetry about and letters to Levertov, but the difference between his epistolary and poetic representations of Levertov is striking. Whereas the friendship (and the argument over Levertov's To Stay Alive that ended the friendship) is carried on in predominantly gender neutral terms in the letters (with two main exceptions that I will discuss), Duncan's poetic representations of Levertov accentuate her femininity and heterosexual eros. Although in their letters Duncan and Levertov sometimes talk of their friendship in terms of love, they usually focus on this love not as eros but as a deep, nonsexual devotion stemming from a shared poetic project (Letters 325). As late as 1969, Duncan characteristically refers to a shared identity of us as poets (Letters 632). Their discussions of creativity and craft are almost never explicitly gendered?much