Statutes of Liberty: The New York School of Poets

by Geoff Ward

Overview

Statutes of Liberty is the first full-length academic study of the New York School of Poets. It contains an introduction to the work of these writers, followed by chapters on the central figures: Frank O'Hara, James Schuyler and John Ashbery. A postscript examines the continuing and changing influence of the New York School. The book is also concerned with deconstruction, a mode of literary analysis with which Ashbery's work in particular has come to be associated by critics in America.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781349225002
Publisher:	Palgrave Macmillan UK
Publication date:	02/15/1993
Series:	Language, Discourse, Society
Edition description:	1st ed. 1993
Pages:	208
Product dimensions:	5.51(w) x 8.50(h) x 0.02(d)

About the Author

Geoff Ward is Professor of English, University of Dundee.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgements - Introduction - James Schuyler and the Rhetoric of Temporality - Frank O'Hara: Accident and Design - A Lyric Poet in the Era of Late Capitalism? - The Look of Glass - Ashbery's Recklessness - Conclusion - Index

Editorial Reviews

An absorbing critical and historical introduction to a challenging but central group of writers. Ward (English, U. of Liverpool) offers close readings of major works by John Ashbery as well as a detailed account of the work of other members of the New York School, such as Frank O'Hara and James Schuyler, who have until recently enjoyed only a cult reputation. Ward concludes with an account of the continuing and changing influences of the New York School on contemporary writers. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

Booknews

'By a wonderful irony - an irony John Ashbery, Frank O'Hara, and James Schuyler would surely have appreciated - the best overview of the New York School of Poets was written by a British poet-critic then living in Liverpool. Geoff Ward's superb close readings of individual poems is everywhere informed by stringent cultural and political commentary. In this new edition, Ward adds a postscript on the legacy of New York poetry, especially in the lyric of the women poets, Barbara Guest and Marjorie Welish, he surveys Ashbery's recent oeuvre, and he revises his earlier estimates of the key influences on his poets. This is a genuinely CRITICAL book, one that no one interested in postwar American poetry will want to miss.' - Marjorie Perloff, Professor of English, Stanford University

'Geoff Ward offers astute readings of several of the most engaging, original, and socially cogent American poets of the past half-century. Statutes of Liberty: The New York School of Poets is a richly detailed and thoughtful account of the contexts and practices of a writing whose ability to reinvent its forms has made it invaluable to the present and future of poetry in English.'- Charles Bernstein, Director, Poetics Program, SUNY-Buffalo

'...gives voice to a lively, combative personality through the characterizations and judgements it renders.' - Stephen Freedman, American Literature

From the Publisher