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Book Reviews

• Barfield, Owen. Poetic Diction
• Torgovnick, Marianna. Gone Primitive
• Tuan, Yi-Fu. Passing Strange and Wonderful

 

• 102 (I Didn't Count) Indispensable(??) Works of Literary Criticism
  – first compiled March 7, 2016

  A list of works of criticism and theory I have found exceptionally valuable to the study and discourse of literature.

• Aesthetic Validity and Ekphrasis
  – posted to the PDC March 14, 2013

  Introducing the concept of validity (being opposed to the idea of art and literary appreciation being about "what it means").

• Aphorisms on the Creative Endeavor
  – last updated April 29, 2014

  On creative writing, yes; but also on the aesthetic. But always still creative writing. If there seems something of a bias for poetry, it is merely because the mood of the moment. They apply throughout.

• Barthes's Mythologies
  – Jan. 31, 2015

  An attempt at explanation of the core, semiotic ideas in "Myth Today," the theoretic essay that closes Mythologies.

• A Basic Statement on the Aesthetic
  – February 14, 2013

  An orienting statement, a creed of sorts, the philosophicap first stepping stone for everything else on the site, put here so that I may try to avoid repeating myself.

• Beginnings and Endings
  – July 14, 2016

  A heavily abridged version of my master's thesis, a discussion of the nature of narrative and of aesthetic narrative. It's two, primary, creative texts are not literary, but are the films The Truman Show and Blade Runner.

• The 'Being' of Aesthetic Literature: Theoretical and Mythical Thinking
  – Jan. 28, 2015
  – originally posted to the PDC Mar. 12, 2014

  A look at the two modalities of thought, writing, and being, through the engagement of Modernist artists with 'Primitive' art, and through Ernst Cassirer's Language and Myth. This offered in discourse around the idea presented by MacLeish in his poem "Ars Poetica," that a poem "should not mean but be."

• The Burial at Thebes and "Hercules and Antaeus"
  – Jan. 30, 2015
  – originally posted to the PDC Aug. 27, 2014

  Exploring the prosaic-poetic spectrum through a critical review of Heaney's two texts. Also, a comment on the idea of serious reading versus reading for fun.

• Calculation: Bad Prose Does Not Make for Good Poetry
  – posted to the PDC March 1, 2013

  Playing off of Wordsworth's idea of a poem as something "calculated."

• Close Reading and Aesthetic Sophistication
  – posted to the PDC March 10, 2013

  A short defense of the importance of close reading as regards poetry (and literature in general) and the writing of poetry (and literature in general). Perhaps also comment on the seeming lack of ability at such for most poets.

• Considering Lyn Hejinian's My Life
  – Oct. 29, 2014

  An examination of the book through the ideas of confidence, genuineness, and strength.

• Crash Davis vs. the Zombies (Review: Poetry Magazine (Oct. 2015) – Part IX)
  – posted to the PDC blog April 15, 2016
  – added to the Cabinet May 25, 2016

  Closing essay to the nine part series: a mostly free standing essay on the discourse on literature and its state in contemporary literary and poetry culture. Also: expertise, democracy, the vote, and zombie films.

• The Emergence of the Occult from within the Culture of the Occult, or, When a Vampire is Just Trying to Get Laid
  – Sept. 30, 2014

  Aesthetic exploration of eroticism through three Hammer films: Lust for a Vampire, The Vampire Lovers, and Twins of Evil.

• Entrances into Poems and Poetry
  – posted to the PDC February 13, 2013

  Sometimes a reader has to learn how to read a poem before they can read the poem. And Barthes's idea that an aesthetic text can only be re-read.

• Erotic Literature: E. E. Cummings's "the mind its own beautiful prisoner"
  – posted to the PDC, Nov. 14, 2016
  – posted to the Cabinet, Jun. 28, 2017

  The ideas of the prosaic and the poetic explored withn the erotic.

  Third part of a three part series on the poetic and the prosaic, with "Second Order Literature: Lowell and H.D." and "Organic and Mechanical Construction: Stevens and Rich"

• Genuine and Sham Poetics: "Journey of the Magi"
  – Jan 30, 2015
  – originally posted to the PDC Nov. 10, 2014

  Eliot's idea of genuine and sham poetry, through an exploration of the poetic line as seen in the opening stanza of his own "Journey of the Magi."

• Immanent Textuality
  – December 1, 2014

  An exploration of aesthetic literature and art through Rank, Lyotard, and Derrida.

• The Intellect and the Internet
  – posted to the PDC blog Sept. 28, 2015
  – added to the Cabinet May 25, 2016

  Does the internest hold a promising future for poetry and literary discourse? Or is more truly defined – and governed – by an ever dominating anti-intellectualism?

• Jerzy Kosinski's The Painted Bird
  – Dec. 10, 2014

  An exploration of book as a literary text, and of the discourse that surrounded its publication.

• Let's Talk About Grammar
  – June 9, 2013

  An exploration on grammar and language sophistication. Originally a response to Matt Haig's follow up to "30 things to tell a book snob," the lesser attempt of "30 things to tell a grammar snob."

• Noble Blasphemy
  – February 18, 2013

  This is, perhaps, the most important essay I have written as regards my own system of thought on the aesthetic and the nomic: not in that it gave me new ideas, for most of this essay comes out of ideas already possessed; rather, in that it gave me the language to speak those ideas, a personal language, the langauge of the aesthetic, the nomic, and blasphemy. It is through writing this essay that the system of my thought came unto itself. As such, this, more than anything else I might put here, is the center of the project that is this site.

• A Note on Close Reading
  – March 16, 2013

  Something from the PDC blog. A passing note on close reading and literature, and, especially, writing poetry.

• A Note on Sophistication and the Individual Reader
  – posted to the PDC February 4, 2013

  Discussion of the idea of "sophistication," an idea frequently seen on the PDC and this site.

• Note on Terminology - "The Aesthetic" vs. "Aesthetics"
  – February 14, 2013

  A note of clarification as to my own terminology.

• Notes on the Idea of Organicism, Part I: Coleridge
  – Jan 28, 2015
  – originally posted to the PDC May 6, 2014

  A presentation of the idea of organicism – in general to the Romantic era and specifically with Coleridge – as it is explicated in M.H. Abrams's The Mirror and the Lamp.

• Notes on the Idea of Organicism, Part II
  – Jan 28, 2015
  – originally posted to the PDC May 8, 2014

  An exploration of the idea of organicism as an foundational idea in the aesthetic, and as a tool in literary criticism.

• Observational Notes on Nomic Performance (or, Watching Crispies in Their Blinders)
  – February 12, 2013

  A discussion on the nature of nomic conversation (spawned by listening to two young men talkng religion in one of my Starbuckses). Includes exploring the pleasure of the nomic, and exploring how facts can function without the speakers being versed in its encompassing system of knowledge, or even without that system of knowledge at all.

• On the Chittering of Meerkats
  – March 24, 2014
  – originally posted to blog, October 3, 2012

  A note from the Tennyson blog, that is something of an earlier note towards "Observational Notes on Nomic Performance," above.

• Organic and Mechanical Construction: Wallace Stevens's "Disillusionment of Ten O'clock" and Adrienne Rich's "Aunt Jennifer's Tigers"
  – posted to the PDC, Oct. 5, 2016
  – posted to the Cabinet, Jun. 28, 2017

  Continuing the exploration of the prosaic and the poetic, this time bringing in verseform.

  Second part of a three part series on the poetic and the prosaic, with "Second Order Literature: Lowell and H.D." and "Erotic Literature: E. E. Cummings"

• Passing, Clever Phrases: Life on Mars
  – Jan 29, 2015
  – originally posted to the PDC Aug. 29, 2014

  A critical review and examination of the Pulitzer winning, poetry collection by Tracy K. Smith. Also, an exploration of the reading phrase by phrase verses reading a work in its entirety (playing off a moment in Coleridge's Biographia Literaria).

• #Poppoetry: The Unsurprising Culture of Poetry in the U.S.
  – September 9, 2013

  An essay on the nomic nature of contemporary poetry, and how that nomic nature works against, rather than for, a culture of poetry as an aesthetic endeavor.

• Reading Typography
  – Jan. 27, 2015
  – originally posted to the PDC Feb. 1, 2014

  A short look at the use of typograpny in a poem, and how it comes off at little more than poppoetic gimmickry. Also, a moment on Cummings's own use of typography to create flatness in his poetry.

• Re-examining the Verse-Prose, Poetic-Prosaic Graph
  – Jan 30, 2015
  – originally posted to the PDC Aug. 17, 2014

  Returning to a graph presented in the post "Verse or Prose, Poetic or Prosaic" to explore the relationship between the material and ideational axes do indeed intersect, creating a usable '+' grid of literature.

• Second Order Literature: Amy Lowell's "Patterns" and H.D.'s "Garden"
  – posted to Cabinet and PDC, Sept. 13, 2016

  An examination of the difference between the prosaic (the mode of factuality) and the poetic (the mode of symbolism).

  First part of a three part series on the poetic and the prosaic, with "Organic and Mechanical Construction: Stevens and Rich" and "Erotic Literature: E. E. Cummings"

• Sharing a Found Bibliography
  – Jan 29, 2015
  – originally posted to the PDC June 28, 2014

  A bibliography of works on literary criticism and literary theory from Owen Barfield's Poetic Diction.

• Story Cards: Notes on the Naïve Narrative
  – April 8, 2013

  Informal exploration of the nomic narrative and the modality of history.

• Tennyson's "Mariana": Ideation and Factuality
  – Jan 30, 2015
  – originally posted to the PDC Sept. 12, 2014

  Looking at how ideation and structure work within Tennyson's "Mariana," considered one of his best works.

• There and Back: An Expeditionary Journey by Way of Manifesto
  – Jan. 31, 2015

  An explication of Susan Sontag's "Against Interpretation," following the chiasmic structure the essay sets up.

• Three Comments on Technique
  – February 28, 2013

  Three thoughts regarding the relationship between technique and the aesthetic work.

• Verse or Prose, Poetic or Prosaic
  – Jan 29, 2015
  – originally posted to the PDC Aug. 19, 2014

  Examines the relationship between the four concepts of verse, prose, the poetic, and the prosaic as prompted by a passage in Owen Barfield's Poetic Diction. Barfield recognizes that verse and prose are concerns of the material nature of the text, while the idea of the prosaic and poetic are concerns of the ideational or spiritual nature of the text.

  See also the follow-up essay, "Re-examining the Verse-Prose, Poetic-Prosaic Graph.

• Yeats, Folklore, and the Aesthetic
  – December 11, 2013

  An essay about Yeats's approach to folklore (and myth) and their relation to the aesthetic (and literature).