The Gift of the Poem: Mallarmé and Robert Duncan's Ground Work: Before the War

Author: Martin, Catherine¹

Source: The Modern Language Review, Volume 103, Number 2, 1 April 2008 , pp. 364-382(19)

Publisher: Modern Humanities Research Association

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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

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