Veronica Forrest-Thomson: Poet on the Periphery

Description

This study offers a comprehensive examination of the work of the young poet and scholar, Veronica Forrest-Thomson (1947-1975) in the context of a literary-critical revolution of the late sixties and seventies and evaluates her work against contemporary debates in poetry and poetics. Gareth Farmer explores Forrest-Thomson’s relationship to the conflicting models of literary criticism in the twentieth century such as the close-reading models of F.R Leavis and William Empson, postructuralist models, and the work of Ludwig Wittgenstein. Written by the leading scholar on Forrest-Thomson’s work, this study explores Forrest-Thomson’s published work as well as unpublished materials from the Veronica Forrest-Thomson Archive. Drawing on close readings of Forrest-Thomson’s writings, this study argues that her work enables us reevaluate literary-critical history and suggests new paradigms for the literary aesthetics and poetics of the future. Front Matter ....Pages i-xiii Introduction: Poet on the Periphery (Gareth Farmer)....Pages 1-23 The Reluctant Radical: Identi-Kit and Uncollected Early Poems (Gareth Farmer)....Pages 25-53 Cambridge, Verbal Hiccups and Iambics: Twelve Academic Questions and Language-Games (Gareth Farmer)....Pages 55-93 Poetic Artifice and the Defence of Form (Gareth Farmer)....Pages 95-128 Simplicity and Complexity in the Quest for Style (Gareth Farmer)....Pages 129-158 Control and Excess in the Quest for ‘Writing Straight’ (Gareth Farmer)....Pages 159-199 Coda: The Risks of ‘Freedom, Truth and Skill’ (Gareth Farmer)....Pages 201-208 Back Matter ....Pages 209-219