Things in Poems From the Shield of Achilles to Hyperobjects

An exploration of the place of material objects in modern poetry.

In this volume, fifteen scholars and poets, from Austria, Britain, Czechia, France, Germany, Ireland, Lithuania, and Russia, explore the topic of things and objects in poetry written in a number of different languages and in different eras. The book begins with ancient poetry, then moves on to demonstrate the significance of objects in the Chinese poetic tradition. From there, the focus shifts to things and objects in the poetry of the twentieth and the twenty-first century, examining the work of Czech, Polish, and Russian poets alongside other key figures such as Rilke, Francis Ponge, William Carlos Williams, and Paul Muldoon. Along the way, the reader gets an introduction to key terms and phrases that have been associated with things in the course of poetic history, such as ekphrasis, objective lyricism. and hyperobjects.

Josef Hrdlička is associate professor of Czech and comparative literature at Charles University, Prague.

Mariana Machová is associate professor of American literature at Charles University and associate professor of English at the University of Southern Bohemia.

Václav Z J Pinkava is a Czech-British poet and translator.