This brilliant, penetrating, and ambitious book by a well-known literary theorist studies the complex relationship between the emotions on the one side and literary works and paintings on the other. A
Charles Altieri's book sets modernist American poetry in a precise cultural context by analysing how major poets reacted to the challenge posed by modernist painting's radical critique of traditional representational models for art. It argues that modernist poets have tended to resist the received values of their contemporary culture by finding idealising principles in modes of pure abstraction. It traces the use of such abstraction in literature from Wordsworth, through Baudelaire and Mallarme, to T. S. Eliot, William Carlos Williams, Marianne Moore, and Gertrude Stein. There are summary chapters also on Wallace Stevens and Ezra Pound, considerations of Cezanne and the Cubists, and a substantial theoretical discussion of the nature of abstract art.
Charles Altieri, one of our foremost analysts of modernism, has in his recent work argued for the importance of the affects, which philosophy has too long subordinated to cognition and ethics. In Wall
Charles Altieri, one of our foremost analysts of modernism, has in his recent work argued for the importance of the affects, which philosophy has too long subordinated to cognition and ethics. In Wall
Self and Sensibility in Contemporary American Poetry is an inquiry into the cultural roles lyric poetry does and can play in our age. Charles Altieri first establishes a dominant mode in 'serious' American poetry by identifying current assumptions inherent in the teaching of creative writing and the awarding of prizes and contracts. The dominant mode is seen not as a prescribed style but as a set of styles that share assumptions and that tend to seek the same narrow audience. Altieri views this mode as essentially scenic, presenting in brief dramatic settings subdued, carefully wrought emotions that build to a climactic tactile image. In examining why the style appeals, the author suggests that we find in the dominant mode models of the self, of the power of language, and of the nature of emotions that are very close to the prudential narcissism of the professional classes. Two theses follow: that contemporary poetry can be approached as a paradigm for analysing literature in cultural
Charles Altieri's book sets modernist American poetry in a precise cultural context by analysing how major poets reacted to the challenge posed by modernist painting's radical critique of traditional representational models for art. It argues that modernist poets have tended to resist the received values of their contemporary culture by finding idealising principles in modes of pure abstraction. It traces the use of such abstraction in literature from Wordsworth, through Baudelaire and Mallarme, to T. S. Eliot, William Carlos Williams, Marianne Moore, and Gertrude Stein. There are summary chapters also on Wallace Stevens and Ezra Pound, considerations of Cezanne and the Cubists, and a substantial theoretical discussion of the nature of abstract art.
This brilliant, penetrating, and ambitious book by a well-known literary theorist studies the complex relationship between the emotions on the one side and literary works and paintings on the other. A
Charles Altieri argues for a reconsideration of the Kantian tradition of Idealist ethics, which he believes can restore much of the power of the arguments for the role of aesthetics in art.
Charles Altieri argues for a reconsideration of the Kantian tradition of Idealist ethics, which he believes can restore much of the power of the arguments for the role of aesthetics in art.
Part anthology, part essay collection, The Fate of Difficulty in the Poetry of Our Time offers original readings of poems composed in this century—poems that are challenging to follow, challengi
Part anthology, part essay collection, The Fate of Difficulty in the Poetry of Our Time offers original readings of poems composed in this century—poems that are challenging to follow, challengi
