ENGLISH

Shades of Authority: The Poetry of Lowell, Hill and Heaney

By Stephen James

Book information

Publisher
Liverpool University Press
Year
2008
ISBN
1846311179, 9781846311178
Language
english
Format
PDF
Filesize
1 MB (1170834 bytes)
Series
Liverpool English Texts & Studies
Pages
256\281
Time added
2017-04-19 18:59:38
Criticism & Theory;History & Criticism;Literature

Description

What is the relationship between poetry and power? Should poetry be considered a mode of authority or an impotent medium? And why is it that the modern poets most commonly regarded as authoritative are precisely those whose works wrestle with a sense of artistic inadequacy? Such questions lie at the heart of Shades of Authority, prompting fresh insights into three of the most important poets of recent decades: Robert Lowell, Geoffrey Hill, and Seamus Heaney. Through attentive close readings, James shows how their responsiveness to matters of political and cultural import lends weight to the idea of poetry as authoritative utterance—but also how each is exercised by a sense of the limitations and liabilities of language itself.

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