John Ashbery and English Poetry / / Ben Hickman.

• Superior document: Title is part of eBook package: De Gruyter Edinburgh University Press Backlist eBook-Package 2013-2000
• VerfasserIn: Hickman, Ben,
• Place / Publishing House: Edinburgh : : Edinburgh University Press, , [2022]; ©2012
• Year of Publication: 2022
• Language: English
• Physical Description: 1 online resource (200 p.)

A study of how we should read one of America's most important poetsBen Hickman argues that we must attend to Ashbery's radical conception of reading if we are to understand the originality of his writing. His study focuses on Ashbery's reading of English poets, including Andrew Marvell, John Donne, William Wordsworth, John Clare, T. S. Eliot and W. H. Auden, and examines Ashbery's writing in terms of an 'aesthetic of inattention'. Hickman critiques the Americanisation of Ashbery's work as well as common assumptions about his Romanticism, his avant-garde Modernism and his engagement with the historical present. He demonstrates that Ashbery's generosity as a writer is closely tied to his generosity, inattention and situatedness as a reader.Key FeaturesOriginal new reading of Ashbery's affinities with English poetry and his engagement with different poets and traditionsDraws on research undertaken at the Houghton archive, where Ashbery's papers are heldInnovative approach will help reshape the critical apparatus for appreciating contemporary poetry as a whole

Table of Contents

Frontmatter -- Contents -- Acknowledgements -- Abbreviations -- Introduction -- Chapter One. Lost words: Donne, Marvell and Ashberyan metaphor -- Chapter Two ‘The music of all present’: Ashberyan description and the presence of John Clare -- Chapter Three ‘Always articulating these preludes’: landscape, Wordsworth, ‘A Wave’ and after -- Chapter Four ‘These decibels’: Eliot, Ashbery and allusion -- Chapter Five. The first and most important influence: Ashbery and Auden -- Bibliography -- Index