(H/B) THEORY OF THE LYRIC

Παρουσίαση

What sort of thing is a lyric poem? An intense expression of subjective experience? The fictive speech of a specifiable persona? Theory of the Lyric reveals the limitations of these two conceptions of the lyric - the older Romantic model and the modern conception that has come to dominate the study of poetry - both of which neglect what is most striking and compelling in the lyric and falsify the long and rich tradition of the lyric in the West. Jonathan Culler explores alternative conceptions offered by this tradition, such as public discourse made authoritative by its rhythmical structures, and he constructs a more capacious model of the lyric that will help readers appreciate its range of possibilities.
Theory of the Lyric constitutes a major advance in our understanding of the Western lyric tradition. Examining ancient as well as modern poems, from Sappho to Ashbery, in many European languages, Culler underscores lyric's surprising continuities across centuries of change - its rhythmical resources, its strange modes of address, its use of the present tense, and the intriguing tension between its ritualistic and fictional dimensions. He defends the idea of lyric as a genre against recent critiques, arguing that lyrics address our world rather than project a fictional world and also challenging the strongly established assumption that poems exist to be interpreted. Theory of the Lyric concludes with a discussion of how to conceive the relations between lyric and society in ways that would acknowledge and respond to lyric's enduring powers of enchantment. (From the publisher)

Περιεχόμενα

Preface
Introduction
I. An Inductive Approach
Nine Poems
Four Parameters
II. Lyric as Genre
Notions of Genre
Lyric History
Lyric Genre
III. Theories of the Lyric
Hegel
Imitation Speech Acts or Epideixis?
Performative and Performance
IV. Rhythm and Repetition
Meter
Rhythm
Sound and Repetition
V. Lyric Address
Address to Listeners or Readers
Addressing Other People
Apostrophe
VI. Lyric Structures
Mapping the Lyric
Lyric Hyperbole
Dramatic Monologue
Framing Past Events
The Lyric Present
VII. Lyric and Society
Engagement and Disengagement
Three Examples
Adorno's Dialectic
Tangling with Ideology
Conclusion
Notes
Index