Lucifer in Harness

For nearly two hundred years the rebellious poet has been reluctantly harnessed the English language and literary tradition. In a triptych of essays, Edwin Fussell attempts to explore the fundamental dilemma of poetry as it appears in the three crucial fields of meter, metaphor, and poetic diction, the three crucial fields of poetry (taken as a whole) most studiously avoided by scholars, but not, as I intend show, by poets. Writing in a provocative critical style attuned the poets he discusses, Edwin Fussell explores the dilemma of the poet who wants write a distinctly American poetry but must do so in a language imbued with the sensibility of English poetry and culture. Because these are different from and sometimes antithetical cultural ideals and commitments, the harness chafes. The emphasis is on those poets who have successfully created a truly poetry-Poe, Whitman, Pound, Eliot, and Williams-but the author also discusses Hart Crane, Wallace Stevens, Emerson, Bryant, Lowell, and Frost, among others. Originally published in 1973. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is vastly increase access the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905

Art · Diction · Linguistics · Literature · Metaphor · Poetry · Philosophy · Poetry Analysis and Criticism

• Emerson, Imagination and a New American Poetry

  Linden Peach•British Influence on the Birth of…•1982

  Add to list