Introspection and Contemporary Poetry

In this bold defense of so-called confessional poetry, Alan Williamson shows us that much of the best writing of the past twenty-five years is about the sense of being or having a self, a knowable personal identity. The difficulties posed by this subject help explain the fertility of contemporary poetic experiment--from the jaggedness of the later work of Robert Lowell to the montage--like methods of John Ashbery, from the visual surrealism of James Wright and W. S. Merwin to the radical plainness of Frank Bidart. Williamson examines these and other poets from a psychological perspective, giving an especially striking reading of Sylvia Plath.

List of contents

About the author

Alan Williamson, Professor of English, University of California, Davis, is a poet whose work has appeared in the New Yorker, New Republic, Partisan Review and other publications; a collection of his poems, Presence was recently published. He is also the author of Pity the Monsters: The Political Vision of Robert Lowell.

Product details

• Authors: Alan Williamson, Williamson Alan
• Publisher: University Presses
• Languages: English
• Product format: Hardback
• Released: 14.03.1984
• EAN: 9780674462762
• ISBN: 978-0-674-46276-2
• No. of pages: 224
• Weight: 499 g
• Subjects: Fiction > Poetry, drama > Poetry; LITERARY CRITICISM / Poetry, POETRY / Anthologies (multiple authors), LITERARY CRITICISM / Modern / 20th Century, Literary studies: poetry & poets, Literary studies: from c 1900 -, Literary studies: c 1900 to c 2000, Poetry anthologies (various poets), Literary studies: poetry and poets