Poetic Gesture: Myth, Wallace Stevens, and the Desirous Motions of Poetic Language

by Kristine S. Santilli

Overview

This study addresses the problem of meaning as it is conveyed by poetic language, attempting to move beyond some of the obstacles and boundaries of contemporary critical approaches. By providing a phenomenological context, and through a theoretical contemplation of certain myths as embodiments of the tacit 'logic' of poetry, the book argues that poems convey meaning much the way that spontaneous unreadable gestures do. Moving between theory and practice, and drawing upon the poetry of Wallace Stevens whose work is embedded with a richness and complexity of gesture, the author shows how the poetic text sustains and embodies an inconvertible, ancient and innately human form of linguistic knowledge.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780415938686
Publisher:	Taylor & Francis
Publication date:	09/20/2002
Series:	Literary Criticism and Cultural Theory
Pages:	178
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x (d)

Table of Contents

Chapter 1 Can Beauty Hold a Plea?; Chapter 2 Two Meditations; Chapter 3 The Necessary Angel; Chapter 4 The Latent Double in the Word; Chapter 5 Whose Spirit is This?;