| Description |
1 online resource (233 pages) |
| Contents |
Cover; Half title; Title Page; Copyright; Contents; List of Abbreviations; Acknowledgements; Introduction; (i) The homosexual epic; (ii) The history of the epic poem; (iii) Homosexuality and the epic; (iv) Sexual citizenship; (v) Homosexuality and the national; (vi) 'I too/that am a nation': The homosexual in America; (vii) Homotextuality; Chapter 1: 'Stranger in America': Hart Crane's Homosexual Epic; (i) The Bridge; (ii) 'Stranger in America'; (iii) Redefining the epic for America; (iv) America versus Europe; (v) Queering the epic; (vi) The homosexual epic |
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(Vii) 'The theme is creative and has vista'(viii) The road to The Bridge; (ix) In the shadow of The Bridge; (x) Homosexuality in context; (xi) Contexts of citizenship; Chapter 2: 'It occurs to me that I am America': Ginsberg's Queer Shoulder; (i) Ginsberg's epics; (ii) 'Putting my queer shoulder to the wheel'; (iii) Ginsberg and the critical field; (iv) A tale of two epics; (v) 'Wichita Vortex Sutra': Black magic language; (vi) The American nekyia; (vii) Ginsberg's America: Rethinking the jeramiad; (viii) Tracing Whitman's influence; (ix) 'The culture of my generation, cocksucking and tears' |
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(X) 'Let the crooked fl ower bespeak its purpose'Chapter 3: 'Narcissus bent/Above the gene pool': James Merrill's Epic of Childlessness; (i) A child of tradition; (ii) Issues of authorship; (iii) Going by the board: Structuring the trilogy; (iv) The role of the unconscious; (v) The influence of Whitman; (vi) Voicing the Other; (vii) Childlessness; (viii) Ego fragmentation and the bardic voice; Chapter 4: ' The natural noise of the present': John Ashbery's Flow Chart; (i) 'A great deal of thinking went into it/and out the other side' |
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(Ii) 'And the river threaded its way best it could through sharp obstacles and was sometimes not there'(iii) 'I'm more someone else, taking dictation/from on high, in a purgatory of words'; (iv) Is Flow Chart an epic?; (v) Situating Ashbery: The critical response; (vi) Flow Chart and polyphony; (vii) A new kind of epic; Postscript; Bibliography; Index |
| Summary |
Davies examines the work of four of the most important twentieth-century poets who have explored the epic tradition. Some of the poems display an explicit concern with ideas of American nationhood, while others emulate the formal ambitions and encyclopaedic scope of the epic poem. The study undertakes extensive close readings of Hart Cranes The Bridge (1930), Allen Ginsbergs Howl (1956) and The Fall of America: Poems of These States 1965-71 (1972), James Merrills The Changing Light at Sandover (1982), and John Ashberys Flow Chart (1991). Although not primarily an account of a Whitmanian lineag |
| Bibliography |
Includes bibliographical references and index |
| Notes |
Print version record |
| Subject |
Homosexuality in literature.
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Epic poetry, American -- History and criticism
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American poetry -- 20th century -- History and criticism
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Literary studies: poetry & poets.
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Literary studies: general.
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LITERARY CRITICISM -- American -- General.
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American poetry
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Epic poetry, American
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Homosexuality in literature
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| Genre/Form |
Criticism, interpretation, etc.
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| Form |
Electronic book
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| ISBN |
9781441109743 |
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1441109749 |
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9781441156549 |
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1441156542 |
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9781472542892 |
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1472542894 |
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144119262X |
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9781441192622 |
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