Poetry at Stake: Lyric Aesthetics and the Challenge of Technology

by Carrie Noland

Overview

Taking seriously Guillaume Apollinaire's wager that twentieth-century poets would one day "mechanize" poetry as modern industry has mechanized the world, Carrie Noland explores poetic attempts to redefine the relationship between subjective expression and mechanical reproduction, high art and the world of things. Noland builds upon close readings to construct a tradition of diverse lyricists—from Arthur Rimbaud, Blaise Cendrars, and René Char to contemporary performance artists Laurie Anderson and Patti Smith—allied in their concern with the nature of subjectivity in an age of mechanical reproduction.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780691004174
Publisher:	Princeton University Press
Publication date:	12/05/1999
Pages:	280
Product dimensions:	7.75(w) x 10.00(h) x (d)

About the Author

Carrie Noland is Associate Professor of French at the University of California, Irvine.

Table of Contents

	Acknowledgments	ix
	Abbreviations	xi
	Introduction	3
1	Traffic in the Unknown: Rimbaud's Interpretive Communities, Market Competition, and the Poetics of Voyance	16
2	A Poetry of Attractions: Rimbaud's Machine and the Theatrical Feerie	37
3	Confessing Philosophy: Negative Dialectics and/as Lyric Poetry	60
4	Blaise Cendrars and the Heterogeneous Discourses of the Lyric Subject	89
5	High Decoration: Sonia Delaunay, Blaise Cendrars, and the Poem as Fashion Design	114
6	Messages personnels: Radio, Cryptography, and the Resistance Poetry of Rene Char	141
7	Rimbaud and Patti Smith: The Discoveries of Modern Poetry and the Popular Music Industry	163
8	Laurie Anderson: Confessions of a Cyborg	185
	Coda	213
	Notes	219
	General Index	255
	Index of Principal Primary Sources Cited	263

What People are Saying About This

Richard Terdiman

By breaking down the ideological barrier segregating art objects from commodities, Noland's book will foster reconceptualization of the relationship between `high' art and more popular forms of cultural expression and activity. It will help to decompose a current conservative critical doctrine, that the objects `cultural studies' examines are somehow intrinsically inferior, subliterary, whereas only 'traditional' literary criticism deals appropriately with first-rank works.

From the Publisher

"By breaking down the ideological barrier segregating art objects from commodities, Noland's book will foster reconceptualization of the relationship between 'high' art and more popular forms of cultural expression and activity. It will help to decompose a current conservative critical doctrine, that the objects 'cultural studies' examines are somehow intrinsically inferior, subliterary, whereas only 'traditional' literary criticism deals appropriately with first-rank works."—Richard Terdiman, University of California, Santa Cruz

"Every chapter in this book is at once richly informative from a cultural and historical point of view and the purveyor of close textual readings that are as convincing as they are exciting. The book's trajectory is marked by meticulous research, acute readings of texts, and cogent argument."—Mary Lydon, University of Wisconsin, Madison

Mary Lydon

Every chapter in this book is at once richly informative from a cultural and historical point of view and the purveyor of close textual readings that are as convincing as they are exciting. The book's trajectory is marked by meticulous research, acute readings of texts, and cogent argument.

Editorial Reviews

"Examining theoreticians . . . and adding an ingenious interpretive analyses of her own, Noland illustrates the extent to which and how the character of various poets, performers, and even a dress designer's productions mediate a dialectic between artist and public."

Choice

"Carrie Noland provides a powerful view of the dynamic connection between lyric poetry and technology. . . . It is invigorating to read such a well documented and providential analysis."—-Susan F. Crampton, French Review

"Excellent in its informative reading of each artist in question, the chapters are independent, richly documented studies of the creative self and its embrace of a particular technology or commercial development."—-Maria L. Assad, Nineteenth-Century French Studies

From the Publisher

Excellent in its informative reading of each artist in question, the chapters are independent, richly documented studies of the creative self and its embrace of a particular technology or commercial development.

Nineteenth-Century French Studies - Maria L. Assad

Carrie Noland provides a powerful view of the dynamic connection between lyric poetry and technology. . . . It is invigorating to read such a well documented and providential analysis.

French Review - Susan F. Crampton

Excellent in its informative reading of each artist in question, the chapters are independent, richly documented studies of the creative self and its embrace of a particular technology or commercial development.
— Maria L. Assad

Nineteenth-Century French Studies

Carrie Noland provides a powerful view of the dynamic connection between lyric poetry and technology. . . . It is invigorating to read such a well documented and providential analysis.
— Susan F. Crampton

French Review