Overview
- Takes together negative theology, American literature, and utopian studies.
- Highlights a new direction in scholarship on experimental poetry.
- Examines the poetry of Susan Howe, Nathaniel Mackey, Charles Bernstein, and other important poets.
Part of the book series: American Literature Readings in the 21st Century (ALTC)
Access this book
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Other ways to access
Table of contents (6 chapters)
Keywords
About this book
This book explores the utopian imagination in contemporary American poetry and the ways in which experimental poets formulate a utopian poetics by adopting the rhetorical principles of negative theology, which proposes using negative statements as a means of attesting to the superior, unrepresentable being of God. With individual chapters on works by such poets as Susan Howe, Nathaniel Mackey, Charles Bernstein, and Alice Notley, this book illustrates how a strategy of negation similarly proves optimal for depicting the subject of utopia in literary works.
Negative Theology and Utopian Thought in Contemporary American Poetry: Determined Negations contends that negative statements in experimental poetry illustrate the potential for utopian social change, not by portraying an ideal world itself but by revealing the very challenge of representing utopia directly.
Reviews
Authors and Affiliations
About the author
Jason Lagapa is Associate Professor of English at the University of Texas – Permian Basin, where he teaches courses in twentieth-century and twenty-first-century American poetry and creative writing. He has published articles in Contemporary Literature and Journal of Modern Literature and contributed to The Salt Companion to Charles Bernstein.
Bibliographic Information
Book Title: Negative Theology and Utopian Thought in Contemporary American Poetry
Book Subtitle: Determined Negations
Authors: Jason Lagapa
Series Title: American Literature Readings in the 21st Century
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-55284-2
Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan Cham
eBook Packages: Literature, Cultural and Media Studies, Literature, Cultural and Media Studies (R0)
Copyright Information: The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s) 2017
Hardcover ISBN: 978-3-319-55283-5Published: 19 May 2017
Softcover ISBN: 978-3-319-85617-9Published: 28 July 2018
eBook ISBN: 978-3-319-55284-2Published: 11 May 2017
Series ISSN: 2634-579X
Series E-ISSN: 2634-5803
Edition Number: 1
Number of Pages: X, 135
Topics: Comparative Literature, Literary Theory, Poetry and Poetics, North American Literature