Journal ArticleDOI
Modernism and Antimodernism at Harvard: James Laughlin's Early Poetry
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TLDR
The authors argued that Laughlin should be considered a part of the Middle Generation, rather than a belated modernist imitator and impresario, and pointed out that even as he swerved away from their influence, Laughlin's teachers still could only see in his poetry the taint of the high modernists.Abstract:
James Laughlin, the founder of New Directions Books, was also a poet whose artistic evolution ran almost precisely counter to that of the modernism he did so much to promote. Originally a juvenile imitator of Pound and Eliot, Laughlin abruptly rejected their model while studying under adamant anti-modernists at Harvard, and developed a style much closer to that of Williams or even Catullus. Ironically, even as he swerved away from their influence, Laughlin’s teachers still could only see in his poetry the taint of the high modernists. At the same time, Laughlin had begun working with and publishing the writing of nascent “Middle Generation” poets such as John Berryman and Randall Jarrell. Reading Laughlin’s work in the context of the 1950s modernist vs. anti-modernist struggle shows that Laughlin should be considered a part of the Middle Generation, rather than a belated modernist imitator and impresario.read more
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Professing Literature: An Institutional History.
Kermit Vanderbilt,Gerald Graff +1 more
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Transhumanism, Utopia, and the Problem of the Real in Ready Player One
TL;DR: The authors argued that Taves's argument about "special things" permits religion scholars to analyze secular texts fruitfully, and pointed out that, for instance, Ernest Cline's Ready Player One speculates about humanity's possible future and h...
References
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Journal ArticleDOI
Professing Literature: An Institutional History.
Kermit Vanderbilt,Gerald Graff +1 more
Book
Institutions of Modernism: Literary Elites and Public Culture
TL;DR: Rainey as discussed by the authors provides a radical and revisionary account of modernism, its many contradictions, and its troubled place in our public culture, looking beyond the well-examined themes and innovative forms of the movement, asking instead where modernism was produced and how it was transmitted to particular audiences.
Book
Modern poetry after modernism
TL;DR: Longenbach's new book as mentioned in this paper offers a wide-ranging account of the past 40 years of American poetry and allows for fuller appreciation of women poets, including those who followed the influence of T.S. Eliot and the New Critics.