The Gift of the Poem: Mallarmé and Robert Duncan's Ground Work: Before the War
Author: Martin, Catherine
Source: The Modern Language Review, Volume 103, Number 2, 1 April 2008 , pp. 364-382(19)
Publisher: Modern Humanities Research Association
Abstract:
Robert Duncan's poetry is conventionally read in the context of the Black Mountain school of poetry or the San Francisco Renaissance of the 1950s. However, his work is also deeply involved with that of the French symbolist Stéphane Mallarmé. While Mallarmé informs much of Duncan's writing, notably the metaphors of interruption and dictation central to his poetics, a cluster of Duncan's poems from the mid-70s gives us an important insight into the procedures of his final Ground Work volumes, illuminating his changing notion of the poem as `gift'.Keywords: Robert Duncan; Black Mountain; poetry; San Francisco Renaissance; symbolist Stéphane Mallarmé; dictation; poetics; Ground Work; gift
Document Type: Research article
Affiliations: 1: University of Sussex
Publication date: 2008-04-01
- The Modern Language Review, the flagship journal of the Association, is available to all individual members as part of their subscription. MLR is one of the oldest journals in its field, maintaining an unbroken publication record since its foundation in 1905, and publishing more than 3,000 articles and 20,000 book reviews.
Each volume consists of four issues, published in January, April, July and October of each year. Its 1000+ annual pages are divided roughly equally between articles, predominantly on medieval and modern literature in the languages of Europe, and over 500 reviews of books in these areas. All contributions are in English, and each section is edited by a noted scholar in the field, under the overall supervision of the General Editor. Articles are chosen not only for their scholarly worth and originality but also, as far as possible, for their potential interest to a wider readership in other disciplines.
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- By this author: Martin, Catherine

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