TY - JOUR
AB - This collection of eleven essays, two of which are contributed by the editor, Rachel Trousdale, aims to portray humour as an essential element of American poetry in the twentieth century. The essays’ authors focus on work by mainstream poets, such as Ezra Pound and Marianne Moore, as well as marginal voices such as Phyllis McGinley, and the majority invoke the interdisciplinary and often non-literary sense of comedy. For instance, Joel Elliot Slotkin’s essay ‘Humor and Authority in Pound’s Cantos’, William Solomon’s consideration of ‘Cummings’ Erotic Humor’ and Karin Roffman’s discussion of ‘Humor and Autobiography in John Ashbery’s Poetry and Prose’ all read their case studies with reference to psychological critical theories. Roffman’s second essay in the collection, on ‘Emotional Comedies: Lorine Niedecker's “For Paul” ’, discusses the psychological aspect of the poetics in humorous poetry, while Stephen Burt’s ‘Merrill, Comedy, Conversation’ also analyses poetics, but more in terms of form than of content. On the other hand, essays by Alan Shapiro on Dickinson, Hardy and Williams, Megan Leroy on Phyllis McGinley, and Rachel Trousdale on Auden’s late 1930s works read the humour in contemporary American poetry through mystic, modern philosophical and ethical critical theories respectively. Overall, this collection unveils the intersections between comedy and the socio-political and philosophical dimensions of American poetry. It also lays important groundwork for possible future work that further delves into the humour of modern American poetry from a variety of interdisciplinary points of view. © The Author(s) 2018. Published by Oxford University Press for the Court of the University of St Andrews. All rights reserved. The University of St Andrews is a charity registered in Scotland: No. SC013532. This article is published and distributed under the terms of the Oxford University Press, Standard Journals Publication Model (https://academic.oup.com/journals/pages/open_access/funder_policies/chorus/standard_publication_model)
TI - Humor in Modern American Poetry. Ed. By Rachel Trousdale
JF - Forum for Modern Language Studies
DO - 10.1093/fmls/cqy053
DA - 2018-10-01
UR - https://www.deepdyve.com/lp/oxford-university-press/humor-in-modern-american-poetry-ed-by-rachel-trousdale-3Ti3GWMYIw
SP - 508
VL - 54
IS - 4
DP - DeepDyve
ER -