Poetics of Breathing: Modern Literature's Syncope

A comparative study of breath and breathing as a core poetic and compositional principle in modern literature.

Breathing and its rhythms-liminal, syncopal, and usually inconspicuous-have become a core poetic compositional principle in modern literature. Examining moments when breath's punctuations, cessations, inhalations, or exhalations operate at the limits of meaningful speech, Stefanie Heine explores how literary texts reflect their own mediality, production, and reception in alluding to...