Heresy and the Ideal: On Contemporary PoetryHeresy and the Ideal is a powerful collection of essays and essay-reviews which David Baker wrote and published throughout the 1990s. He thoroughly discusses the work of more than fifty contemporary poets, including T. R. Hummer, Miller Williams, Albert Goldbarth, Jane Kenyon, Galway Kinnell, Charles Simic, Ted Kooser, David Wojahn, Alice Fulton, Louise Glück, and Charles Wright. He takes as his models some of the great critical books of the past three decades, especially Richard Howard's masterpiece, Alone with America, and Helen Vendler's Part of Nature, Part of Us, as well as other works by Laurence Lieberman, Majorie Perloff, Carol Muske, and Mary Kinzie. At its center, Heresy and the Ideal is based on Baker's sense of Romantic poetics, especially on how contemporary poets have applied, altered, or rejected certain Romantic principles. He uses the Romantic trope to measure the tension between passion and reason and between the problems of literary transcendence and the obligations of social engagement. The result is a welcome variety of enlightening, practical criticism devoid of exclusionary jargon and based on persistent attention to an individual poem or book of poems. Utilizing the essay-review, Baker considers each poet's purposes and achievements. He blends the strategies of explanation, analysis, and evaluation, clarifying each poet's work instead of complaining or condemning. Heresy and the Ideal addresses a wide and diverse range of contemporary poetry and should take a deserved place both as a critical introduction to the work of many important poets and as a work that documents and explores the shape of poetry at the end of the millennium. |
From inside the book
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Page xiv
... past two decades the literary professorate has disengaged itself from the literary text as a whole . I have colleagues who don't read literature anymore , although they read earnestly about theories of literature . A poet friend ...
... past two decades the literary professorate has disengaged itself from the literary text as a whole . I have colleagues who don't read literature anymore , although they read earnestly about theories of literature . A poet friend ...
Page xv
... past twenty years the university has experienced a kind of explosion . Its greatest efforts have been to widen its own scope and nature , and among the central developments are these : critical attention to the rhetoric of popular ...
... past twenty years the university has experienced a kind of explosion . Its greatest efforts have been to widen its own scope and nature , and among the central developments are these : critical attention to the rhetoric of popular ...
Page xviii
... past three decades , especially Richard Howard's masterpiece , Alone with America ; Helen Vendler's Part of Nature , Part of Us , The Music of What Happens , and Soul Says ; as well as other works by Laurence Lieberman , Marjorie ...
... past three decades , especially Richard Howard's masterpiece , Alone with America ; Helen Vendler's Part of Nature , Part of Us , The Music of What Happens , and Soul Says ; as well as other works by Laurence Lieberman , Marjorie ...
Page xx
... past two decades . Likewise , Mark Doty's 1991 volume , Bethlehem in Broad Daylight , disappoints my judgment , but two years later he published his finest work , My Alexandria . I try to explicate the strengths and limitations of all ...
... past two decades . Likewise , Mark Doty's 1991 volume , Bethlehem in Broad Daylight , disappoints my judgment , but two years later he published his finest work , My Alexandria . I try to explicate the strengths and limitations of all ...
Page xxii
... over the past decade in journals and books . Friends and strangers have passed along questions , criticism , recommendations , and sometimes extensive commentary . They have added greatly to my understanding INTRODUCTION.
... over the past decade in journals and books . Friends and strangers have passed along questions , criticism , recommendations , and sometimes extensive commentary . They have added greatly to my understanding INTRODUCTION.
Contents
3 | |
On Albert Goldbarth Jane Kenyon LiYoung Lee | 61 |
The Push of Reading | 79 |
Framed in Words | 99 |
Smarts | 119 |
Plainness and Sufficiency | 149 |
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Common terms and phrases
A. R. Ammons aesthetic Albert Goldbarth Alice Fulton American Angelic Orders articulate becomes body Boland book of poems book's Charles Simic clarity connection contemporary Coulette critical cultural David Wojahn dead death deep image desire Diane di Prima dramatic Eavan Boland erasure erotic experience Falling Hour figure final formal Glück Goldbarth grace Hell Henri Coulette Heresy Hummer's ideal imagery imagination impulse Jorie Graham kind Kinnell Kooser's language lines literary lives loss Louise Glück lover lyric MacNeice means memory Merwin method mother mystery Naked poets narrative nature night Olds's Pankey passion past poem's poems poet's poetic poetry political provides rhetorical rhyme Romantic Romanticism seems sense Simic social song sonnet speaker spiritual stance stanzas story strategy syntax T. R. Hummer things tion transcendence transcendental trope turns vision voice Whitman Williams's Wojahn woman words Wright writes