American Poetry: The Rhetoric of Its Forms.

Mutlu Konuk Blasing.

ISBN 10: 0300037937 / ISBN 13: 9780300037937

Published by Yale University Press, New Haven, CT, 1987

About this Item

First Edition [1987]; First Printing indicated by a complete numerical sequence. Near Fine in Very Good DJ. Book shows minimal rubbing to the extremities; single, very faint smudge at the upper fore-edge; else flawless; the binding is square and secure; the text is clean. Free of creased or dog-eared pages in the text. Free of any underlining, hi-lighting or marginalia or marks in the text. Free of ownership names, dates, addresses, notations, inscriptions, stamps, or labels. A handsome, nearly-new copy, structurally sound and tightly bound, showing a hint of wear and a single cosmetic flaw. Bright and clean. Corners sharp. Very close to 'As New'. The DJ shows a couple of small chips and tiny tears at the top edge; overall light wear to the extremities; unclipped; mylar-protected. Attractive and intact, but shows light wear. NOT a Remainder, Book-Club, or Ex-Library. 8vo. (9.55 x 6.35 x 1 inchs). 248 pages. Language: English. Weight: 22 ounces. Hardback with DJ. Blasing endeavors to clear American poetry of its "centering figure," Ralph Waldo Emerson, instead identifying a quartet: Emerson, Poe, Whitman, and Dickinson as that tradition's informing figures. She then associates each with a "master trope: "metaphor, metonymy, synecdoche, and irony, respectively, that serves as a "strategy" for organizing our approach to the poems they offer. The eight 20th-century poets investigated here, ranging from Eliot to Ashbery, are placed in one or another of these overarching tropes. First Edition [1987]; First Printing indicated by a complete numerical sequence.

Seller Inventory # 55546

Bibliographic Details

• Title: American Poetry: The Rhetoric of Its Forms.
• Publisher: Yale University Press, New Haven, CT
• Publication Date: 1987
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0300037937
• ISBN 13: 9780300037937
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition: 1st Edition
• Dust Jacket Condition: Dust Jacket Included
• Seller catalogs:
  • Prose & Criticism

About this title

Synopsis

This important study of major nineteenth - and twentieth - century American poets redefines poetic tradition in America. Mutlu Konuk Blasing argues against the prevailing view that Emerson stands alone at the head of a single line of succession. She shows, rather, that four nineteenth-century poets----Poe, Emerson, Whitman, and Dickinson---each established an American poetic tradition.

From Library Journal

Blasing wants to clear American poetry of its "centering figure," Ralph Waldo Emerson, instead identifying Emerson, Poe, Whitman, and Dickinson as that tradition's four informing figures. She then associates each with a "master trope"metaphor, metonymy, synecdoche, and irony, respectivelythat serves as a "strategy" for organizing poems. The eight 20th-century poets investigated here, ranging from Eliot to Ashbery, belong in one of these camps. Blasing's thesis, a hodge-podge of linguistics and phenomenology that is muddled from the introduction on, serves to drive away the diligent reader, while the omission of historical Puritanism and its offshoots (Edwards, Alcott, Thoreau) prevents her from really getting at the roots of the American sensibility. Not a book, but a series of disjointed essays. Marc Widershien, Special Collections, State Lib. of Massachusetts
Copyright 1987 Reed Business Information, Inc.