General Editor: Clive Bloom Editorial Board: Clive Bloom, Brian Docherty, Gary Day, Lesley Bloom

Transcription

1 INSIGHTS General Editor: Clive Bloom Editorial Board: Clive Bloom, Brian Docherty, Gary Day, Lesley Bloom Insights brings to academics, students and general readers the very best contemporary criticism on neglected literary and cultural areas. It consists of anthologies, each containing original contributions by advanced scholars and experts. Each contribution concentrates on a study of a particular work, author or genre in its artistic, historical and cultural context. Published titles Clive Bloom (editor) JACOBEAN POETRY AND PROSE: Rhetoric, Representation and the Popular Imagination TWENTIETH-CENTURY SUSPENSE: The Thriller Comes of Age SPY THRILLERS: From Buchan to le Carre AMERICAN DRAMA Clive Bloom, Brian Docherty, Jane Gibb and Keith Shand (editors) NINETEENTH-CENTURY SUSPENSE: From Poe to Conan Doyle Clive Bloom and Brian Docherty AMERICAN POETRY: The Modernist Ideal Dennis Butts STORIES AND SOCIETY: Children's Literature in a Social Context Gary Day (editor) READINGS IN POPULAR CULTURE: Trivial Pursuits? THE BRITISH CRillCAL TRADITION: A Re-evaluation Gary Day and Clive Bloom (editors) PERSPECTIVES ON PORNOGRAPHY: Sexuality in Film and Literature Brian Docherty (editor) AMERICAN CRIME FICTION: Studies in the Genre AMERICAN HORROR FICTION: From Brockden Brown to Stephen King TWENTIETH-CENTURY EUROPEAN DRAMA

2 Rhys Garnett and R. J. Ellis (editors) SCIENCE FICTION ROOTS AND BRANCHES: Contemporary Critical Approaches Robert Giddings (editor) LITERATURE AND IMPERIALISM Robert Giddings, Keith Selby and Chris Wensley SCREENING THE NOVEL: The Theory and Practice of Literary Dramatisation Dorothy Goldman (editor) WOMEN AND WORLD WAR 1: The Written Response Paul Hyland and Neil Sammells (editors) IRISH WRITING: Exile and Subversion Maxim Jakubowski and Edward James (editors) THE PROFESSION OF SCIENCE FICTION: Writers on their Craft and Ideas Mark Lilly (editor) LESBIAN AND GAY WRITING: An Anthology of Critical Essays Christopher Mulvey and John Simons (editors) NEW YORK: City as Text Adrian Page (editor) THE DEATH OF THE PLAYWRIGHT? Modem British Drama and Literary Theory Frank Pearce and Michael Woodiwiss (editors) GLOBAL CRIME CONNECTIONS: Dynamics and Control John Simons FROM MEDIEVAL TO MEDIEVALISM Jeffrey Walsh and James Aulich (editors) VIETNAM IMAGES: War and Representation Gina Wisker (editor) BLACK WOMEN'S WRITING

3 American Poetry: The Modernist Ideal Edited by CLIVE BLOOM Middlesex University and BRIAN DOCHERTY Goldsmiths' College, University of London pal grave macmillan

4 The Editorial Board, Lumiere (Cooperative Press) Ltd 1995 All rights reserved. No reproduction, copy or transmission of this publication may be made without written permission. No paragraph of this publication may be reproduced, copied or transmitted save with written permission or in accordance with the provisions of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, or under the terms of any licence permitting limited copying issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency, 90 Tottenham Court Road, London W1P 9HE. Any person who does any unauthorised act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages. First published 1995 by MACMILLAN PRESS LTD Houndmillsr Basingstoke, Hampshire RG21 6XS and London Companies and representatives throughout the world ISBN ISBN (ebook) DOI / A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. Logging, pulping and manufacturing processes are expected to conform to the environmental regulations of the country of origin.

5 Contents Preface Notes on the Contributors vii viii 1 Introduction 1 Clive Bloom 2 H.D. (Hilda Doolittle) 10 David Seed 3 Ezra Pound 28 Ian F. A. Bell 4 Hart Crane 47 Gregory Woods 5 William Carlos Williams 62 Alistair Wisker 6 Wallace Stevens 81 Pat Righelato 7 Kenneth Rexroth 93 Thomas Evans 8 Marianne Moore 105 Lorrayne Carroll 9 e.e. cummings 120 Brian Docherty 10 Objectivism 131 Richard Bradbury 11 Frank O'Hara 143 Eric Mottram v

6 vi Contents 12 Charles Olson 167 Gavin Selerie 13 Allen Ginsberg 199 Brian Docherty 14 EdwardDom 218 Geoff Ward 15 Robert Creeley 232 Alistair Wisker 16 Denise Levertov 253 Nancy K. Gish Index 271

7 Preface The modernist tradition in American poetry traces its origins back to Walt Whitman. Whitman's poetry, like the modernists' poetry of this century, is epic, inclusive and concerned with 'making it new': each time seeing the world in radical and revolutionary terms equal to the universalising vision of America and its concept of democracy. For the modernist poets of this century Whitman's legacy is an unfinished one and Whitman waits to greet their efforts at the dawn of the twenty-first. Modernist poetry was not confined to a few great though eccentric writers at the beginning of this century, rather it has been an enduring tradition embracing writers from the east coast, mid west and Pacific coasts: imagist, objectivist, beat. International in flavour and structure but determined first and foremost by its affinity with the language and conditions of mass American democracy and the constant imperative to renew and reawaken, this poetry finds its voice in its complexity and epic quality. With its detailed introduction and scholarly essays this volume helps define the American modernist canon, its obsessions and its structure. Students will find the essays detailed and comprehensive, together giving a real feeling for the major poets not only of the modernist canon but also of America. Academics and serious readers will find a range of approaches and variety of subject matter which provide an important contribution to current poetic debate. This book is one of the few available to address the full variety, history and movement of American modernist poetry across this century. vii

8 Notes on the Contributors Ian F. A. Bell is Professor of English and American Literature at the University of Keele. His books include Critic as Scientist: The Modernist Poetics of Ezra Pound; Henry James and the Past: Readings into Time; Washington Square: Styles of Money; and he has edited Ezra Pound: Tactics for Reading; Henry James: Fiction as History and American Literary Landscapes (with D. K. Adams). Clive Bloom is the author of several books on literature, cultural theory and popular fiction. He has recently edited Literature and Culture in Modern Britain: and American Drama in the Twentieth Century, and is the author of Pulp: from Sweeney Todd to Stephen King (forthcoming). Richard Bradbury is a lecturer in English and American literature at the University of Exeter. He contributes regularly to the Insights series. Lorrayne Carroll teaches at the University of South Maine. Brian Docherty is a poet and tutor in English at Goldsmiths' College, London. He is the editor of several books, including American Crime Fiction, Twentieth-Century European Drama and The Beats. Thomas Evans is an independent scholar and writer who lives in Hertford, England. Nancy K. Gish is Professor of English at the University of South Maine and is the author of several works on literature and poetry, including Hugh MacDiarmid: The Man and His Work. Eric Mottram is Emeritus Professor of English and American Literature at King's College, University of London. He has published over a dozen books on modem literature and culture including studies on William Faulkner, Allen Ginsberg and William S. Burroughs. viii

9 Notes on the Contributors ix Pat Righelato is a Tutor in Literature for the Open University. David Seed lectures at Liverpool University, is the author of numerous articles and of full-length studies of Thomas Pynchon and Joseph Heller. Gavin Selerie is a Tutor in Literature for Birkbeck College Centre for Extra-Mural Studies. He is editor of the Riverside series of interviews with Gregory Corso, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Allen Ginsberg and others. Geoff Ward is a Lecturer in the English Department at the University of Liverpool. The author of many articles on poetry from the Romantics to the present day, he has recently completed Statues of Liberty: The New York School of Poets and Language, Poetry and the American Avant-Garde. He is currently editing The Bloomsbury Guide to Romantic Literature, and is the author of six collections of poetry. Alistair Wisker teaches at the University of East Anglia. He is the author of many articles and essays as well as a full-length study, Tlte Writing of Nathaniel West. Gregory Woods is a Lecturer for Manchester Metropolitan University. He is author of Articulate Flesh: Male Homo-Eroticism and American Poetry.