Power, Plain English, and the Rise of Modern PoetryDIVIn this engaging book David Rosen offers a radically new account of Modern poetry and revises our understanding of its relation to Romanticism. British poets from Wordsworth to Auden attempted to present themselves simultaneously as persons of power and as moral voices in their communities. The modern lyric derives its characteristic complexities—psychological, ethical, formal—from the extraordinary difficulty of this effort. The low register of our language—a register of short, concrete, native words arranged in simple syntax—is deeply implicated in this story. Rosen shows how the peculiar reputation of “plain English” for truthfulness is employed by Modern poets to conceal the rift between their (probably irreconcilable) ambitions for themselves. With a deep appreciation for poetic accomplishment and a wonderful iconoclasm, Rosen sheds new light on the innovative as well as the self-deceptive aspects of Modern poetry. This book alters our understanding of the history of poetry in the English language./div |
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... , 33 3 Certain Good: W. B. Yeats and the Language of Autobiography, 73 4 The Lost Youth of Modern Poetry: T. S. Eliot, W. H. Auden, 123 Notes, 181 Index, 201 Acknowledgments My first thanks must go to Robert Belknap, who Contents.
... , 33 3 Certain Good: W. B. Yeats and the Language of Autobiography, 73 4 The Lost Youth of Modern Poetry: T. S. Eliot, W. H. Auden, 123 Notes, 181 Index, 201 Acknowledgments My first thanks must go to Robert Belknap, who Contents.
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... Language Quarterly , as well as two read- ers , drastically improved my account of T. S. Eliot with their recommendations . Two anonymous readers for Yale University Press are as responsible for this book's final form as anyone . One ...
... Language Quarterly , as well as two read- ers , drastically improved my account of T. S. Eliot with their recommendations . Two anonymous readers for Yale University Press are as responsible for this book's final form as anyone . One ...
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... language : " words alone , " he twice intones , “ are certain good . " 1 This epigram , asserting not just the power in language — dic- tion , to be more precise — but the power to be had in wielding it , has implications reaching far ...
... language : " words alone , " he twice intones , “ are certain good . " 1 This epigram , asserting not just the power in language — dic- tion , to be more precise — but the power to be had in wielding it , has implications reaching far ...
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... language in pre- vious scenes had vividly reflected his own maddened state— You sulphr'ous and thought - executing fires , Vaunt - couriers of oak - cleaving thunderbolts , Singe my white head ! ( III.ii.4—6 ) -his speech here is plain ...
... language in pre- vious scenes had vividly reflected his own maddened state— You sulphr'ous and thought - executing fires , Vaunt - couriers of oak - cleaving thunderbolts , Singe my white head ! ( III.ii.4—6 ) -his speech here is plain ...
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... Language " : ( i ) Never use a metaphor , simile , or other figure of speech which you are used to seeing in print . ( ii ) Never use a long word where a short one will do . ( iii ) If it is possible to cut a word out , always cut it ...
... Language " : ( i ) Never use a metaphor , simile , or other figure of speech which you are used to seeing in print . ( ii ) Never use a long word where a short one will do . ( iii ) If it is possible to cut a word out , always cut it ...
Contents
1 | |
15 | |
33 | |
Certain Good W B Yeats and the Language of Autobiography | 73 |
The Lost Youth of Modern Poetry T S Eliot W H Auden | 123 |
Notes | 181 |
Index | 201 |
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Common terms and phrases
argument autobiography beauty Beggar begins Book Cambridge career century chapter claims Cold Heaven Coleridge crisis critics culture decade diction early Essays experience feelings finally Freud Green Helmet Harold Bloom human identity idiom imagination Jarrell John John Keats Juvenilia XVIa Katherine Bucknell Keats kind landscape language late later Latinate lines Locke Locke's low register lyric M. H. Abrams mature Maud Gonne meaning memory metaphor mind modern poetry Modernist myth nature object Orwell passage perhaps period philosophical plain English poem poet poet’s poetic political Prelude prose psychology Randall Jarrell reality recognize rhetoric Romantic Romanticism seems sense Shelley simple ideas social speaker stanza style suggest T. S. Eliot theory things thought Tintern Abbey tion tradition truth turn understanding University Press verse verse paragraph vision visionary voice W. B. Yeats W. H. Auden Watershed William Wordsworth words Wordsworthian writing Yeats's York