Others, an important and neglected little magazine, finally receives the attention it deserves in Churchill's superbly crafted study. In Churchill's discussions of Mina Loy, Marianne Moore, and William Carlos Williams, among others, Others serves as a framework for reassessing the scope and significance of modernist formalism. This book is an important contribution to the fields of American poetry and poetics, gender studies, queer theory, and cultural studies.
Suzanne Churchill's well-researched and superbly crafted study is the first book-length treatment of Others, an important and neglected little magazine that served as a laboratory for modernist poetic experimentation. In discussions of influential poets such as Mina Loy, Marianne Moore, and William Carlos Williams, whose careers Others helped launch, Churchill counters the notion of Modernism as aesthetically self-isolating and socially disengaged. Rather, she traces a correspondence between formal innovation and social change in American modernist poetry and argues that this dimension of modernist formalism is lost when poems are studied in isolation. Others provides a framework for reassessing the scope and significance of modernist formalism. The little magazine not only anchors modernist poetry in a social context but also leads to new insight into major modernist texts. Churchill's commitment to her subject's broad cultural contexts makes her book important for students and teachers of Modernism as well as for those working in the fields of American poetry and poetics, gender studies, queer theory, periodical studies, and cultural studies.
Modernism's Other Work challenges our view of relationships between aesthetic autonomy and the world of daily life--a conjuncture that Lisa Siraganian demonstrates has often been misunderstood in critical studies of modernism. Connecting poetry to the visual arts and politics, the author provides new ways to think about modernist art's relationship.
Explores critical and creative responses to the contemporary poetry archiveProvides an innovative new dialogue between critics and creative writers on the value and practice of the literary archiveExpandes the scope for understanding perspectives on, and the opposition between, creative and critical relations to archival materialsOpens up a new cross-disciplinary agenda for thinking the archive as both a source for scholarship and a source of inspiration for creative practiceThese 13 newly commissioned chapters examine the impact of archival poetry collections on both literary scholarship and poetic practice. They examine what we can learn from the drafts, notebooks and personal libraries left behind by poets and look at the ways in which the growth of poetry archives has changed the way poets think about their work. The contributing poets and scholars - including Susan Howe, Sean O'Brien and George Szirtes - present an in-depth account of the significance of poetry archives for contemporary literature. The collection provides a new cross-disciplinary agenda for thinking about the archive as both a source for scholarship and inspiration for creative practice.
The print culture of the early twentieth century has become a major area of interest in contemporary Modernist Studies. Modernism's Print Cultures surveys the explosion of scholarship in this field and provides an incisive, well-informed guide for students and scholars alike. Surveying the key critical work of recent decades, the book explores such topics as: - Periodical publishing – from 'little magazines' such as Rhythm to glossy publications such as Vanity Fair - The material aspects of early twentieth-century publishing – small presses, typography, illustration and book design - The circulation of modernist print artefacts through the book trade, libraries, book clubs and cafes - Educational and political print initiatives Including accounts of archival material available online, targeted lists of key further reading and a survey of new trends in the field, this is an essential guide to an important area in the study of modernist literature.
Provides an alternative account of the modernist transatlanticTransatlantic Avant-Gardes offers a revisionary account of the evolution of twentieth-century modernism. Complimenting recent studies of modernist expatriates, Eric White explores new points of contact between European and American avant-gardes to place 'located' figures such as William Carlos Williams, Marianne Moore, Wallace Stevens, Jean Toomer, and Alfred Kreymborg back into the 'global design' of literary modernism. Focusing on artist-run 'little magazines' (including Others, Contact, The Little Review, Blast, The Dial, Fire!!, and Pagany) and selected fine press publications and mainstream periodicals, White also reconsiders the boundaries that traditionally divide modernist literature into 'exile' and 'localist', or 'regionalist' and 'cosmopolitan', factions. Thus, the book proposes a version of localist modernism that prioritises issues of geographic and textual 'location' to deliver a 'networked' approach to American modernism in the transatlantic context. Combining literary-historical, textual, and cultural criticism, Transatlantic Avant-Gardes provides a new reading of the specialised literary networks that interrogated the relationship between geographic place, textual space and national identity in the modernist transatlantic.
Building on recent work on Victorian print culture and the turn toward material historical research in modernist studies, this collection extends the frontiers of scholarship on the 'Atlantic scene' of publishing, exploring new ways of grappling with the rapidly changing universe of print at the turn of the twentieth century.
In historiography, many interesting theoretical perspectives on biography have emerged in recent years, from forensics to structure and microhistory. Biographers themselves, though, often fear the study of the genre - needlessly, as these eighteen engaging new essays demonstrate.
The Cambridge History of American Poetry offers a comprehensive exploration of the development of American poetic traditions from their beginnings until the end of the twentieth century. Bringing together the insights of fifty distinguished scholars, this literary history emphasizes the complex roles that poetry has played in American cultural and intellectual life, detailing the variety of ways in which both public and private forms of poetry have met the needs of different communities at different times. The Cambridge History of American Poetry recognizes the existence of multiple traditions and a dramatically fluid canon, providing current perspectives on both major authors and a number of representative figures whose work embodies the diversity of America's democratic traditions.
