Poetic Practice Research Articles

Misogyny and the Complete Gentleman in Early Elizabethan Printed Miscellanies

ABSTRACT Tottel's Miscellany disseminated in print a model of male courtly and cultivated behaviour in which the writing of aphoristic and amorous verse was central. This model produced a proliferation of printed miscellanies of verse in the early Elizabethan period, both single-author collections and anthologies, in which male courtly behaviour is defined in terms of the potentially contradictory ideals of elegant amorousness and well-framed virtue. Women overwhelmingly appear in such collections as figures of glamorous instability or sexual betrayal. Only occasionally, most notably in the collections of Isabella Whitney, does one find traces of the central importance, and active participation of women, in the earlier manuscript production of courtly verse. This essay will consider the plethora of printed miscellanies of short secular verse that appeared in the 1560s and 1570s in the wake of Richard Tottel's hugely successful Songes and Sonettes, written by the right honorable Lord Henry Haward late Earle of Surrey, and other, first printed in 1557, but with multiple editions until the end of the century. (1) My argument will be that by their selection and presentation in print of courtly verse, Tottel and his successors helped to erase in print the centrality of women in the production of such verse, whether as readers and performers, as instigators and answerers, or, on occasion, no doubt, as composers and adaptors of such verse. For the mid-century miscellanists, the writing of courtly verse was primarily a gentlemanly activity in which the active participants were almost exclusively male, and in which the attitudes and gestures marketed as socially desirable contributed to the construction of a desirable mid-century masculine self, humanist-educated and socially aspiring. (2) Surviving manuscripts of early Tudor verse, such as the 'Devonshire MS', used by a number of female courtiers associated with Anne Boleyn and Lady Margaret Douglas, niece of Henry VIII, or the 'Findern MS', belonging to, and used by, women as well as men of a Derbyshire gentry family in the late fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries, contain, as well as misogynist verse and poems blaming women, a number of poems in women's voices, giving female perspectives on the fashionable topics of love and fidelity. (3) Even an early Tudor manuscript that appears to have been compiled and used mainly by men such as the 'Blage MS' makes clear that the 'answer' poem, with its witty ripostes, often in female voices, to male attacks on women, was a popular topic implying a potential role and voice for women in courtly verse exchange. (4) Of course, we cannot assume that female-voiced poems were always or even usually composed by women, but in a culture of open copying, adaptation, and appropriation of manuscript verse, the relatively frequent occurrence of poems giving a sympathetic female perspective suggests the centrality of women's participation and the perceived need to provide a variety of voices for them. (5) Tottel's Miscellany, by the act of printing such verse, transformed its context and effect from witty or graceful gestures in a system of elite manuscript exchange and social pastime into exemplary models of an approved and refined style, designed in the words of Tottel in his prefatory epistle 'to the Reader' to 'exhort the vnlearned, by reding to learne to be more skilfull, and to purge that swinelike grossenesse, that maketh the swete maierome [marjoram] not to smell to their delight' (i, 2). The prominence of Surrey's name enhanced the social glamour of the Miscellany, leading to a particular association of its verse with Surrey and to the assumption, on the part of some readers at least, that most, if not all the poems it contained were his (ii, 67). As a number of scholars have argued, Tottel's Miscellany and its imitators 'marketed exclusivity [... they] functioned as conduct books [...] because they demonstrated to more common audiences the poetic practices entertained by graceful courtly readers and writers'. …

Zwei Clowns im Lande des verlorenen Lachens: Das Liedertheater Wenzel & Mensching by David Robb

520 Reviews schiebungergibt'. The firstvolume of 1998 centredonthe Todesartenproject, whereas this one addresses a much broader range of texts, but has a distinctive methodological focus in that it is made up of 'diskursanalytische und kontextualisierende Beitrage' (P- 10). The opening essay by Sara Lennox may be familiar to English readers from its original version in Thalia'sDaughters: German WomenDramatistsfrom theEighteenth Century to the Present, ed. by S. L. Cocalis and Ferrel Rose (Bern: Francke, 1996). It focuses on Der gute Gott von Manhattan, and sees it as a text poised between 'nicht mehr' and 'noch nicht'?in other words, marked by the interplay of prevailing socio-cultural conditions and utopian aspirations. In particular, female love enacts this dialectic, being an entrapped, even masochistic, urge on the one hand, and on the other a redemptive energy. The historical and dialectical disposition of Lennox's enquiry serves as a springboard for the rest of the volume. There are no explicit cross-references, but the various essays link, to varying degrees, back to the opening piece. Under the heading 'Diskursanalytische Lektiiren und intertextuelle Konstellationen ', Lesley Morris compares the poetic practice of Bachmann and Sylvia Plath. Britta Herrmann's essay on the representation of 'das Weibliche' raises broader ques? tions which are at the very heart of current Bachmann reception. Moving away from an essentialist approach, she reads Malina as an interplay of various gendered dis? courses which ultimately define the feminine perspective as unviable. Essentially, Herrmann is concerned to show how the text develops 'eine Poetik der Kritik ? einer Kritik des von ihm selbst evozierten Diskurs-Kontextes' (p. 52). The argument is clearly indebted to Judith Butler's categories of performativity and mimicry, but Herrmann stops short of claiming Bachmann for postmodernism: the novel may anticipate 'postmoderne Konzepte flexibler Geschlechter- und Subjektpositionen', but remains 'einer melancholischen Moderne verhaftet' (p. 66). In the section on 'Philosophische, wissenschaftliche und politische Kontextualisierungen ', Maria Behre argues that poems like 'Hinter der Wand' act out the insights Bachmann gained when she worked with Viktor Frankl, whose teaching rested on the premiss of logotherapy, the articulated word as an antiphobic agent. Jost Schneider alerts us to a number of historical-political correspondences in Bachmann 's 'Biichnerpreisrede'. B. Mennel, again much indebted to Butler, focuses on Der Fall Franza and starts from the much-debated question of whether masochism connives at existing power structures or subverts them through critical mimicry. She concludes that while the text invokes the topos of the woman as victim, it also sub? jects it to critical differentiation. This essay stands out by its impressive theoretical underpinning, but its case rests ultimately on the much more familiar claim that there is critical distance between the narrator and Franza. Overall, then, the book offers a stimulating spectrum of critical contributions, al? though it does not entirely avoid the slightly random feel of most miscellany volumes. The introduction extends an unusually welcoming hand to young Bachmann schol? ars, and the 'Anhang' is of particular interest as it includes a recent interview (1999) with Hans Werner Henze. King's College, Cambridge Erika Swales Zwei Clowns imLande des verlorenenLachens: Das Liedertheater Wenzel & Mensching. By David Robb. Berlin: Links. 1998. iv + 208 pp. ?14.90. ISBN 3-86153156 -9 (pbk). This is the first monograph to examine the prolific GDR poet/Liedermacher duo Steffen Mensching and Hans-Eckardt Wenzel and their controversial theatre group MLR, 98.2, 2003 521 Karls Enkel. It traces their work from its origins in the GDR Singebewegung to the cult DEFA filmLetztes aus der Da Da eR (1990), and beyond into the new Germany. In the course of his study, David Robb (himself a Germanist and Liedermacher) of? fers a unique insight into previously unpublished scripts, and uses photographs, Stasi files, detailed stage-books, and interviews to get closer to the phenomenon that was 'Mensching & Wenzel ? fast eine Markename'. It is exciting to see a young academic from a British university publishing with a commercial publishing house in Germany and taking on the kind of essential primary research which will allow us better to understand the workings of the GDR state. Mensching and Wenzel are perhaps known to Auslandsgermanistik through their poetry and novels. In the...

Placing the Shameless: Approaching Poetry and the Politics of Pemban-ness in Zanzibar, 1995-2001

of literary scholars who have sought to understand role of Swahili poetry in forging of national and regional identities in East Africa (see Shariff; Amidu; Sengo and Mulokozi; Mazrui and Shariff; Biersteker). Others, social historians, anthropologists, and ethnomusicologists, have placed special emphasis on taarab, or sung poetry, and sociopolitical implications of its practice (Topp, A History of Taarab Music; Topp Fargion, Nyota Alfajiri and Hot Kabisa!; Fair ; Askew; Lange; Ntarangwi ). These works together have done much both to high? light political importance of poetry and to bring identity-making aspects of creative practice more fully into social-scientific purview.1 But lit? erary approaches to Swahili poetry, and to sung poetry, or taarab, in general lack an attention to social context apart from moment of composition, and nature of accurate interpretation; anthropological approaches to poetic practice and song performance, even as they focus on politics of practice and take state's role into account, may not yet have given sufficient attention to role of poetry in making of explicidy unequal political identities outside of performative and creative arenas. Neither approach has fully confronted relationship between academic forms of representation and politics of representation on ground, where states to a great extent control, police, exploit, and silence various poetries and populations. The gap between literary and ethnographic approaches to Swahili poetry can mask, and in some ways replicate, very politics of representation that structure silence and expression, both in academic texts, and in Swahili societies where such politics have a significant and sometimes deadly impact on participants themselves. All recent publications on Swahili poetry stress imbrication of social life and poetic practice. Alamin Mazrui and Ibrahim Shariff write that, up to nineteenth century, the fit between poetry and rest of

Experimental Poetic Practices in Spain

In this essay I explore a variety of experimental poetic tendencies produced in Spain during the twentienth century. Some of the most popular experimental poetic practices are visual poetry, sound poetry, phonetic poetry, computer poetry, video poetry, and mail art. Because these tendencies were not born in Spain we have to take into consideration international and historical avant-garde practices such as concretism, phonetic poetry, and others. I also study the different interests between multiple artistic languages employed in historical avant-garde poetry and in more recent experimental poetry. Another aspect studied is the political background especially in the sixties and seventies in Spain and how it conditioned the development and durability of different groups and artistic expressions. Another important factor taken into consideration is the use and development of the different technologies available. Technology is not a medium in this kind of poetry but part of the message and for that purpose it can be used in different ways in the construction of a poem. Because of the complexity of the subject, and the difficulty of getting access to rare books and materials I give a panoramic view - with special attention to selected poems and authors - of the most visible experimental poetic manifestations produced in Spain. But there is a need to do more specialized studies in order to gain a better comprehension of these alternative poetic practices that are becoming more and more popular today.

Social Poetics as Management Inquiry

The author’s position in this article is that we create our social realities, meaning, and selves in embodied and situated dialogue. Given the premise that language is metaphorical and sense making a multiply constructed, dynamic embodied practice, then what are the implications for research? The author suggests social poetics is one research practice that offers a way of exploring how, in the flow of our embodied dialogical activity, we relate to our surroundings and make sense of our experiences. Embracing a radically reflexive stance, social poetics elevates everyday, imaginative ways of talking, for example, metaphors, storytelling, and gestural statements. Using excerpts from research conversations, the author explores the practice of social poetics as a form of management inquiry.

The Value of "Eschaunge": Ransom and Substitution in Troilus and Criseyde

Troilus and Criseyde has long been considered a poem of radical irony, a bifurcated tale of "double sorwe" that seems to test how little resolution its characters, and its readers, can bear. 1 The poem's constant changes and exchanges, its sheer number of goings-over and goings-between, deny readerly "pees" and exceed the comfort of explanatory "suffisaunce"; to search for stable value in the poem is to acknowledge that "trouthe" is almost always rhymed with "routhe." 2 Understandably, many modern critics have sought ways to explain, if not to resolve, the poem's complex of ambiguities. Some have linked its thematics of mutability with the wheels of Boethian philosophy or with the kinds of worldly contrarieties transcended by Christian theology. 3 Others have identified a source of the poem's ambiguity in the verbal play of translation and literary reception. 4 Still others have suggested that the poem's doubleness derives from Chaucer's own divided loyalty to his king and John of Gaunt, and from his own border-crossings as a royal intelligencer. 5 I want to discuss another element of historical context that might differently illuminate the poem's preoccupation with double sense, surrogacy, and substitution: the medieval chivalric practice of ransom. Chaucer himself had been captured and held for ransom by the French during the military campaign of 1359-1360, and he likely drew on this experience when depicting the military proceedings of the Trojan war. 6 The "eschaunging" of Criseyde for Antenor by the Trojan Parliament clearly alludes to the particular principles and methods of medieval ransom. Chaucer does not depict ransom merely to condemn it as a tragic instance of military injustice or chivalric corruption, however. More subtly, he both introduces ransom into the plot of Troilus as a historical practice and refracts it into part of a larger poetic practice. 7 In its depiction of character, in its narrative structure, and even in its insistently metaphoric language, the poem makes use of the resonances of ransom to suggest that value [End Page 335] and meaning are not threatened, but rather generated by separation and exchange.

Robert Frost and the politics of poetry

In his new study of an iconic poet, Tyler Hoffman challenges prevailing assumptions about the relation between Robert Frost's poetry and his theory of form and reveals the poet as responsive to both the aesthetics of modernism and the public issues of the time. In a series of subtle and sophisticated readings of the poems, Hoffman shows that in practice Frost regularly, and happily, disregarded his own, oft-repeated pronouncements about form and poetic sense. Indeed, he argues, it is precisely in the ambiguity produced by these departures, and in the inability of the authorial voice to totally command a reader's response and interpretation, that so much of the power of Frost's poetry resides. In addition to exploring Frost's entanglements with modernist aesthetics, Hoffman revises commonly held views of the poet's political commitments and the politics of his formalism. Through his readings, Hoffman argues that Frost's poetic practice is fundamentally progressivist. In his concluding chapter, Hoffman considers the postcolonial legacy of Frost's poetry and theory of poetic form, with particular attention to the work of Seamus Heaney, Derek Walcott, and Joseph Brodsky.

Writing as Possibility: Poetic Practices and Pedagogy

Writing as Possibility: Poetic Practices and Pedagogy

Astralis von Novalis: Handschrift-Text-Werk

Vietor, Sophia. von Novalis: Handschrift-Text-Werk. Wurzburg- Konigshausen & Neumann, 2001. 416 pp. EURO44,00 paperback. Of the many manuscripts by Friedrich von Hardenberg (Novalis) that have resurfaced since 1960 in the course of on the historical-critical Novalis edition, perhaps none is more precious than the one that Sophia Vietor has located at the British Library in London and chosen as the subject for this fascinating study. Astralis is the poem that begins the fragmentary second part of Heinrich von Ofterdingen and, in effect, serves as the bridge between Die Erwartung and Die Erfullung-the expectations raised by the protagonist's initiation into love and poetry in the first part of the novel, and the envisioned transformation of the world through the power of poetry made conscious of its own abilities. Stefan Zweig acquired Astralis in 1911 and clearly regarded it as one of the chief glories of his manuscript collection, which included musical scores by Beethoven and Mozart and which Zweig valued as indices of the process underlying artistic creativity. Before leaving Salzburg for London in 1936, due to the rise of Nazism and Austro-Fascism, Zweig sold some of these manuscripts and donated others to the Austrian National Library; only after 1986, when the heirs of Stefan Zweig bequeathed a collection to the British Library, did it become evident that Zweig had taken Astralis-hitherto regarded as lost-with him into exile. One thing is certain: the attentive reader of Vietor's monograph will readily understand why Zweig held this manuscript in such high esteem. Vietor's subtitle, Handschrift-Text-Werk, indicates the tripartite division of her study. Following the introduction, in which she outlines the key role of Astralis within Heinrich von Ofterdingen as a manifestation of early German Romanticism's self-reflective Poesie der Poesie, Vietor discusses the chronology of Novalis's on his novel, the likely owners of the Astralis manuscript prior to Stefan Zweig, and the publication history of this poem since 1802. While Novalis specialists will appreciate Vietor's painstaking graphological analysis as an aid in establishing the probable dating of the manuscript in June or July of 1800-several months earlier than previously assumed -the main philological gain comes in her establishment of a text, complete with manuscript variants, that eventually will be included in the concluding volumes of the historical-critical Novalis edition. The many additions and corrections within the manuscript make it clear that the text of Astralis is neither a transcription nor a mere rough draft, but rather a completed poem that also documents the amount of work that goes into art. In this regard, it indicates that Klingsohr's description of poetry as strenge Kunst (HKA I: 282) in chapter 7 of Heinrich von Ofterdingen accords with its author's own poetic practice. In the conclusion to her comparison of the finished text with its crossed-out variants, Vietor remarks: Im Ganzen lasst sich sagen, dass die Endfassung distanzierter, poetologisch reflektierter and starker auf den Roman bezogen ist als die Vorformen (124). As considerable as Vietor's achievements already are, the real treat for her readers begins with the third and final section of her study (136-379), which involves the interpretation of Astralis as Werk: i. …

Lórinc Szabó and Max Stirner

A decisive paradigmatic change in the poetry of Lorinc Szabo in 1927–1928 seems to be synchronous with a comparable alteration in world literature: a shift from classical modernity to hermetism, abstract objectivism, consciousness lyric and a new subjectivism, trends which anticipated present day styles and have survived in neoavant-gardist and poststructuralist poetics. By this move his poetic practice transcended the phase represented by Stefan George, Rainer Maria Rilke, or Mihaly Babits and paralleled poetic events then unseen or unforeseen by Lorinc Szabo. These included transmutations in the work of contemporary poets, Gottfried Benn, T. S. Eliot, Ezra Pound or Attila Jozsef. The novelty was not thematic but modal: a new discourse, a change from the homogeneous to the dialogical conception of the poem. In Lorinc Szabo's vision of personality the voice of the actorincludes the voice of the rebellious individualof traditional poetry (with a sociological view, a pragmatical-pedagogical motivation and a psychological quest for truth) counterpoised by the voice of the spectatorexhibiting the stable laws of the universe (passing a logical judgment). It was a radical novelty in his poetry that the distinction and distance of the ego and the world ceased to be a precondition of aesthetic formation and were replaced by the polyphonic utterance of a You and the World, which living in, and at the same time distanced from, the ego enter into a dialogue in their poetic quiddity. The idea of “one justice” informing world history gave way to a demand for the “one's justice.” Lorinc Szabo's sense of contradiction between the ego and history was reinforced by his study of Der Einzige und sein Eigentum by Max Stirner. In the light of this work he reconsidered the ideas of religion, fatherland, freedom, love, justice, and liberalism and came to confront all of the bonds of the individual personality and collective action. The poetic adaptation of Stirner's ideas presents a peculiar case of intertextuality: it encourages the poem's train of thought, tunes its mode of discourse, integrates textually in the course and rhetoric of creation, and occasionally informs the poems in their entirety (as a rule those of the highest poetic rank).

Prosody and versification systems of ancient verse

The aim of the present study is to describe the prosodic systems of the Greek and Latin languages and to find out the versification systems which have been realized in the poetical practice. The Greek language belongs typologically among the mora-counting languages and thus provides possibilities for the emergence of purely quantitative verse, purely syllabic verse, quantitative-syllabic verse and syllabic-quantitative verse. There is no purely quantitative or purely syllabic verse in actual Greek poetry; however, the syllabic-quantitative versification systems (the Aeolian tradition) and quantitative-syllabic versification systems (the Aeolian tradition) were in use. The Latin language, on the other hand, has a number of features, which characterize it as a stress-counting language. Since at the same time there exists also the opposition of short and long syllables, there are preconditions for the syllabic, accentual and quantitative principle, as well as for the combinations of these. The Roman literary heritage shows examples of purely accentual, syllabic-quantitative, quantitative-syllabic, as well as of several other combinatory versification systems.

Everyday conversations

My position in this paper is that talk is the primary medium of making sense of and constructing our social and organizational realities. In particular, I suggest we need to incorporate the discourse of everyday conversations into critical management theory because it opens up conventional research to new possibilities. Social poetics offers a way of exploring how, in the flow of our embodied dialogical activity, we link ourselves to our surroundings and make sense of our experience. As a form of inquiry, social poetics elevates everyday, imaginative ways of talking; for example, metaphors, storytelling and instructive statements. I explore how the practice of social poetics influences our research, how it may help us understand how managers live their organizational lives, and why it is important to Critical Management Studies. I incorporate extracts from research conversations with managers to illustrate this approach.

L'approche acroamatique de la poésie de Simone Weil

In her essay Ms Gutbrod presents the poetry of Simone Weil from the point of view of its soundind and tries to rehabilitate the role of acoustic sensitivity on different levels of the interpretation. Simon Weil is rather neglected as a poet, although both her poetic practice and theory are highly remarkable. The turning point of her artistic development is a mystical experience after which she turns definitely to poetry and abandonsall themes expect for the representation of the mystical quest. To highlight the poetic aspect of this change Ms Gutbrod attempts to unfold the themes of cry and silence in Simone Weil's poerty: first she examines the acoustic universe of the poems (that is, the physical level of hearing), then she describes the role of listening in the process of reception. Finally she reflects on the notion of listening ment in an ontological sense.

Loa and behold: voice ghosts in the new technoculture

This article suggests that the use of femininity and voice in digital art practice has a powerful potential to conjure provocative spaces in the new technoculture. Using a range of theoretical writers including Margaret Morse, Nell Tenhaaf, Simon Penny, Brenda Laurel and Sue-Ellen Case, the article traces contemporary thought on femininity, technology and voice. Gilson-Ellis uses her own choreographic / poetic practice as examples in these discussions. Through an adaptation of Sue-Ellen Case's proposal of the voudou vever and the loa, the article suggests that the voice in relation to writing and new technologies has a radical potential to open up alternative kinds of spaces in digital art practice.

Marsyas's Howl: The Myth of Marsyas in Ovid'sMetamorphosesand Zbigniew Herbert's “Apollo and Marsyas”

Research Article| March 01 2001 Marsyas's Howl: The Myth of Marsyas in Ovid's Metamorphoses and Zbigniew Herbert's “Apollo and Marsyas” JOANNA NIŻYŃSKA JOANNA NIŻYŃSKA Search for other works by this author on: This Site Google Comparative Literature (2001) 53 (2): 151–169. https://doi.org/10.1215/-53-2-151 Cite Icon Cite Share Icon Share Twitter Permissions Search Site Citation JOANNA NIŻYŃSKA; Marsyas's Howl: The Myth of Marsyas in Ovid's Metamorphoses and Zbigniew Herbert's “Apollo and Marsyas”. Comparative Literature 1 March 2001; 53 (2): 151–169. doi: https://doi.org/10.1215/-53-2-151 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 JournalsComparative Literature Search Advanced Search The text of this article is only available as a PDF. University of Oregon2001 Article PDF first page preview Close Modal Issue Section: Articles You do not currently have access to this content.

Uncovering Heian Japan: An Archaeology of Sensation and Inscription

The poetry of the Heian court of Japan has typically been linked with the emergence of a distinct Japanese language and culture. This concept of a linguistically homogeneous and ethnically pure Japaneseness has been integral to the construction of a modern Japanese nation, especially during periods of western colonial expansion and cultural encroachment. But Thomas LaMarre argues in Uncovering Heian Japan that this need for a cultural unity - a singular Japanese identity - has resulted in an overemphasis of a relatively minor aspect of Heian poetry, obscuring not only its other significant elements but also the porousness of Heian society and the politics of poetic expression. Combining a pathbreaking visual analysis of the calligraphy with which this poetry was transcribed, a more traditional textual analysis, and a review of the politics of the period, LaMarre presents a dramatically new view of Heian poetry and culture. He challenges the assumption of a cohesive national imagination, seeing instead an early Japan that is ethnically diverse, territorially porous, and indifferent to linguistic boundaries. Working through the problems posed by institutionalized notions of nationalism, nativism, and modernism, LaMarre rethinks the theories of scholars such as Suzuki Hideo, Yoshimoto Takaaki, and Komatsu Shigemi, in conjunction with theorists such as Derrida, Karatani, Foucault, and Deleuze. Contesting the notion that speech is central to the formation of community, Uncovering Heian Japan focuses instead on the potential centrality of the more figural operations of poetic practice. Specialists in Japanese history and culture as well as scholars working in other areas of cultural criticism will find that this book enriches their understanding of an early Japan that has exerted so much influence on later concepts of what it means to be Japanese.

Baudelaire poète latin

Like Rimbaud and Sainte-Beuve, Baudelaire excelled in the study of Latin poetry when he was at school. It is nonetheless legitimate to ask how much this allows us to better understand the radically new aesthetics he advocated. Baudelaire articulated original ideas about the role of the Latin language in French poetry and engagea in aesthetic reflection about the relationship between the Latin poetry of the decadent period and literary modernity. Furthermore, the poet believed that there was a mysterious, even mystical affinity between the Latin and French languages. Underlying the intertextuality and rewriting that mark Baudelairian verse, and give it its present/absent Latinity, is a constantly renewed process of reflection about the stylistic influences proper to the «lieu commun». Baudelaire's poetry tends to impose Latin upon the French to such a degree that this internal tension becomes central to the meaning, the oblique inscription of the Latinity revealing both the ontological power of the Word and its limits. It is as if the writing is constantly pointing to an «ailleurs» that emblematizes the diffuse and anamorphic presence of Latin in the text. This deliberate use of poetic practice mirrors a shattered reality, whose reflection is an empty transcendence that the poet at the same time denies. Baudelaire's Latin poetics is the linguistic projection of an ontology that is inseparable front hermeneutics.

Hegemony and Identity: The Chicano Hybrid in Francisco X. Alarcón's Snake Poems

Snake Poems renegotiates power relations between the discourse of Spanish imperialism and Aztec poetic practice. Alarcón's extended poem enacts a process of ethnic, cultural, and spiritual identification through a confrontation between texts—Alarcón's original poems, passages of commentary from the Spanish Inquisitor Hernando Ruíz de Alarcón's treatise on Aztec spells and invocations, and the Aztec spells themselves in the original Náhuatl, the Aztec language. Each of these three layers of text represents a unique and competing people, ideology, and culture, and it is the clash and the hybrid fusion of these distinct discourses that Alarcón the poet stages in Snake Poems. Ironically, Alarcón the Inquisitor's Treatise functions today as a window onto Aztec ritual and belief, despite its original purpose to stamp out such rituals and beliefs. Alarcón the poet turns the Inquisitor's text against itself and thereby reappropriates and recreates the power of Aztec song as an antidote to Anglo-American imperialism. Through the reappropriation of the transformative poetic vision of the Aztecs, the Chicano becomes the embodiment of the Aztec poetic trope of difrasismo, the suspended unity of conqueror and conquered, of violation and renewal, of flower and song.

Poe: the concept of poetry and poetic practice with reference to the relationship between The poetic principle and Annabel Lee

This paper begins with the acknowledgment, on the 150th anniversary of his death, of Poe's significance as a great poetic theorist: whatever aesthetic and artistic evaluation the Bostonian Poe's work (1809-1849) may give rise to in the present-day reader, we must agree that his critical judgements of artistic works in themselves and his poetic theories have had far-reaching subsequent repercussions. Starting from this evaluation of Poe as an author of great intellectual lucidity, as the main aim of this work is to make an in-depth study of Poe as a poetic theorist, in order to ascertain to what extent his aesthetic theories are reflected in one of his poems. In order to define the area of reference, I have employed an analytical method which will contrast the basic ideas that appear in The Poetic Principie of 1850, with an earlier poem Annabel Lee written in 1849. Finally, this paper stresses the importance of the creative act as the actual origin, rather than the consequence, of his poetic theses, although Poe's merit lies, above all, in his determination to assign a method to literary creation, that is to say, Poe challenges the Romantic criteria regarding freedom of inspiration, calling for an intellectual and analytical study which would contribute to the rigour of poetic composition.

Poetics, Today

Taking up the time of my encounter with Benjamin Harshav, which was also when PTL became Poetics Today and a key moment in the development of literary studies toward a more theoretical grounding, this essay raises the issue of the place and status of poetics in today's field of literary studies. Through probing a passage from Proust's A la recherche du temps perdu, the claim is put forward that the literary text itself,in addition to being poetic, is doing poetics. The passage, in other words,offers an experiment in semiotic sign-making that is fully capable of participating in theoretical debate.The debate, in this case, concerns the status of visuality in linguistic texts. This is a happy coincidence, since this is a hotly debated issue in today's humanities. After the linguistic and anthropological turns, we are now in the middle of the visual turn. In an attempt to articulate what could be a genuinely visual moment in literature, narrativity and visuality are brought together in the notion of a visual act. To that effect, two standard equations concerning the visual are scrutinized. On the one hand, the equation between image and iconicity is criticized. On the other, the equation between speech acts and acts of looking is underlined. Attending to the subtleties of Proust's text helps understand what a visual act can be instead.The example allows us to speculate that, among the many advantages the work around the notion of poetics has offered as a tool toward a more theoretical and more scientific literary scholarship, the continued attention to poetic practice as potentially also a theoretical practice is particularly important today, another key moment, when we are turning to interdisciplinarity.