ENGLISH

Modernism and Poetic Inspiration: The Shadow Mouth (Modern and Contemporary Poetry and Poetics)

By Jed Rasula

Book information

Publisher
Palgrave Macmillan
Year
2009
ISBN
0230610943, 9780230610941
LCC
PN1042 .R26 2009
Google Books ID
GMTiuwm_NzwC
Open Library ID
OL22696490M
Language
english
Format
PDF
Filesize
2 MB (2439228 bytes)
Series
Modern and Contemporary Poetry and Poetics
Pages
268\268
Orientation
yes
Scanned
no
Time added
2012-03-09 12:00:00

Description

A major provocation to modern poetics is the inspirational bounty of destruction (effacement, negation, undoing) bequeathed by Mallarmé. Modernist poets and artists explored this initiative through strategic explorations in the materiality of the medium, as well as dislocations of sensibility. Informing these maneuvers is the most ancient legacy of the muses, the supposition of a guiding voice, a shadow mouth. This legacy nourishes a fantasy of inspiration as privileged access to the murmur of pre-signifying meaning, a speech without words, a picture without images, or images that are so deep as to defy scrutiny. The sites of inspiration documented in Modernism and Poetic Inspiration range from nineteenth century linguistic theory to postmodern strategies of conceptual writing, encompassing well known instances of modernist poetics (Mallarmé, Pound, Olson) alongside obscure but revealing figures like Otto Nebel and Henri-Martin Barzun.

Similar books