Spiegelman examines the theme of indolence-- both positive and negative--as it appears in the canonical work of four Romantic poets. He argues for a renewal of interest in literary formalism, aesthetics, and the pastoral genre. Wordsworth's "wise passiveness," Coleridge's "dejection" and torpor, Shelley's pastoral dolce far niente, and Keats's "delicious...indolence" are seen as individual manifestations of a common theme. Spiegelman argues that the trope of indolence originated in the religious, philosophical, psychological, and economic discourses from the middle ages to the...
Spiegelman examines the theme of indolence-- both positive and negative--as it appears in the canonical work of four Romantic poets. He argues for a r...
Although readers of prose fiction sometimes find descriptive passages superfluous or boring, description itself is often the most important aspect of a poem. This book examines how a variety of contemporary poets use description in their work. Description has been the great burden of poetry. How do poets see the world? How do they look at it? What do they look for? Is description an end in itself, or a means of expressing desire? Ezra Pound demanded that a poem should represent the external world as objectively and directly as possible, and William Butler Yeats, in his introduction to...
Although readers of prose fiction sometimes find descriptive passages superfluous or boring, description itself is often the most important aspect of ...
Although readers of prose fiction sometimes find descriptive passages superfluous or boring, description itself is often the most important aspect of a poem. This book examines how a variety of contemporary poets use description in their work. Description has been the great burden of poetry. How do poets see the world? How do they look at it? What do they look for? Is description an end in itself, or a means of expressing desire? Ezra Pound demanded that a poem should represent the external world as objectively and directly as possible, and William Butler Yeats, in his introduction to The...
Although readers of prose fiction sometimes find descriptive passages superfluous or boring, description itself is often the most important aspect of ...
Willard Spiegelman is considered one of the finest critics of poetry writing today and this volume collects his best work on the subject, offering essays that span his entire career and chart his changing relationship to an elusive form. He takes the measure of a wide spectrum of poetry, ranging from the Romantic era to the present, through an examination of those poets whose language, formal experiments, and music have fascinated him throughout his career. With his trademark engaging and stylish prose, Spiegelman takes readers on a tour of the rich and diverse landscape of British and...
Willard Spiegelman is considered one of the finest critics of poetry writing today and this volume collects his best work on the subject, offering ess...
What does it mean to be happy? Ever since the Founding Fathers invited every citizen to join the pursuit of happiness, Americans have been studying and pining for that elusive state of mind. But rather than explaining happiness, in Seven Pleasures Willard Spiegelman demonstrates it: he immerses usin the joyful, illuminating practice of seven simple pleasures --dancing, reading, walking, looking, listening, swimming, and writing--and evokes all the satisfactions they offer. Lighthearted, insightful, and deeply felt, Seven Pleasures is a portrait of pure enjoyment.
What does it mean to be happy? Ever since the Founding Fathers invited every citizen to join the pursuit of happiness, Americans have been studying...
Writing with the vigor and elan that readers have come to expect from his many astute reviews and essays, Willard Spiegelman maintains that contemporary American poets have returned to the poetic aims of an earlier era: to edify, as well as to delight, and thus to serve the "didactic muse." What Spiegelman says about individual poets--such as Nemerov, Hecht, Ginsberg, Pinsky, Ammons, Rich, and Merrill, among others--is wonderfully insightful. Furthermore, his outlook on their work--the way he takes quite literally the teacherly elements of their poems--challenges long-standing conceptions...
Writing with the vigor and elan that readers have come to expect from his many astute reviews and essays, Willard Spiegelman maintains that contemp...
Writing with the vigor and elan that readers have come to expect from his many astute reviews and essays, Willard Spiegelman maintains that contemporary American poets have returned to the poetic aims of an earlier era: to edify, as well as to delight, and thus to serve the "didactic muse." What Spiegelman says about individual poets--such as Nemerov, Hecht, Ginsberg, Pinsky, Ammons, Rich, and Merrill, among others--is wonderfully insightful. Furthermore, his outlook on their work--the way he takes quite literally the teacherly elements of their poems--challenges long-standing conceptions...
Writing with the vigor and elan that readers have come to expect from his many astute reviews and essays, Willard Spiegelman maintains that contemp...
Drawing on more than six decades' worth of lessons from his storied career as a writer and professor, Willard Spiegelman reflects with candid humor and sophistication on growing old. Senior Moments is a series of discrete essays that, when taken together, constitute the life of a man who, despite Western cultural notions of aging as something to be denied, overcome, and resisted, has continued to relish the simplest of pleasures: reading, looking at art, talking, and indulging in occasional fits of nostalgia while also welcoming what inevitably lies ahead.
Senior Moments...
Drawing on more than six decades' worth of lessons from his storied career as a writer and professor, Willard Spiegelman reflects with candid humor...
