Overview
Demonstrates a keen understanding of the conceptual and aesthetic aspects of the poetry of Pound, Frost, and Moore
Traces the historical contexts for the rising importance of mathematics and science and its influence on literature in America
Investigates the uses of precision’s opposite—imprecision—in poetry
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Table of contents (6 chapters)
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Front Matter
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Back Matter
Keywords
About this book
Pound, Frost, Moore and Poetic Precision: Science in American Modernist Poetry examines three major poets in light of the demand that poetry aspire to scientific precision. The critical insistence that poetry be precise affected every one of these poets, and looking at how they responded to this insistence offers a new perspective on their achievements and, by extension, twentieth-century poetry in general. Ezra Pound sought to associate poetry with the precision of modern science, technology and mathematics as a way to eliminate or reduce error. Robert Frost, however, welcomed imprecision as a fundamental aspect of existence that the poet could use. Marianne Moore appreciated the value of both precision and imprecision, especially with respect to her religious perspective on human and natural phenomena. By analyzing these particular poets’ reaction to the value placed on precision, Barry Ahearn explores how that emphasis influenced the broader culture, literary culture and twentieth-century Modernist American poetry.
Reviews
Authors and Affiliations
About the author
Barry Ahearn is Professor Emeritus of English at Tulane University, USA. He is the author of Zukofsky’s “A”: An Introduction (1983) and William Carlos Williams and Alterity (1994). He has also edited the correspondence of Cummings, Pound, Williams and Zukofsky.
Bibliographic Information
Book Title: Pound, Frost, Moore, and Poetic Precision
Book Subtitle: Science in Modernist American Poetry
Authors: Barry Ahearn
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-36544-8
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), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020
Hardcover ISBN: 978-3-030-36543-1Published: 05 February 2020
Softcover ISBN: 978-3-030-36546-2Published: 05 February 2021
eBook ISBN: 978-3-030-36544-8Published: 04 February 2020
Edition Number: 1
Number of Pages: XII, 332
Topics: Poetry and Poetics, North American Literature, Twentieth-Century Literature, History of Science