Professing Sincerity

Sincerity--the claim that the voice, figure, and experience of a first-person speaker is that of the author--has dominated both the reading and the writing of Anglo-American poetry since the romantic era. Most critical studies have upheld an opposition between sincerity and the literary marketplace, contributing to the widespread understanding of the lyric poem as a moral refuge from the taint of commercial culture. Guided by the question of why we expect poetry to be sincere, Susan Rosenbaum reveals in Professing Sincerity: Modern Lyric Poetry, Commercial Culture, and the Crisis in Reading that, in fact, sincerity in the modern lyric was in many ways a product of commercial culture. As she demonstrates, poets who made a living from their writing both sold the moral promise that their lyrics were sincere and commented on this conflict in their work. Juxtaposing the poetry of Wordsworth and Frank O'Hara, Charlotte Smith and Sylvia Plath, and Anna Laetitia Barbauld and Elizabeth Bishop, Rosenbaum shows how on the one hand, through textual claims to sincerity poets addressed moral anxieties about the authenticity, autonomy, and transparency of literature written in and for a market. On the other hand, by performing their "private" lives and feelings in public, she argues, poets marketed the self, cultivated celebrity, and advanced professional careers. Not only a moral practice, professing sincerity was also good business. The author focuses on the history of this conflict in both British romantic and American post-1945 poetry. Professing Sincerity will appeal to students and scholars of Anglo-American lyric poetry, of the history of authorship, and of gender studies and commercial culture.

A compelling study of new sincerity as a powerful cultural practice, born in perestroika-era Russia, and how it interconnects with global social and media flows The global cultural practice of a new sincerity in literature, media, art, design, fashion, film, and architecture grew steadily in the wake of the Soviet collapse. Cultural historian Ellen Rutten traces the rise and proliferation of a new rhetoric of sincere social expression characterized by complex blends of unabashed honesty, playfulness, and irony. Insightful and thought provoking, Rutten s masterful study of a sweeping cultural trend with roots in late Soviet Russia addresses postsocialist, postmodern, and postdigital questions of selfhood. The author explores how and why a uniquely Russian artistic and social philosophy was shaped by cultural memory, commodification, and mediatization, and how, under Putin, new sincerity talk merges with transnational pleas to revive sincerity. This essential study stands squarely at the intersection of the history of emotions, media studies, and post-Soviet studies to shed light on a new cultural reality one that is profoundly affecting creative thought, artistic expression, and lifestyle virtually everywhere.

Emphasizing the diversity of collage in the twentieth century, Rona Cran's book explores the role that it played in the work of Joseph Cornell, William Burroughs, Frank O'Hara, and Bob Dylan. Collage's catalytic effect, Cran argues, enabled each to overcome a crisis in representation that threatened to destabilize their work. Throughout, she shows that rigid definitions of collage severely limit our understanding of artists and writers who used it in non-traditional ways.

Conducted by an association of collegiate and professional students, in the United States and Europe...

A COMPANION TO MODERNIST POETRY A Companion to Modernist Poetry A Companion to Modernist Poetry presents contemporary approaches to modernist poetry in a uniquely in-depth and accessible text. The first section of the volume reflects the attention to historical and cultural context that has been especially fruitful in recent scholarship. The second section focuses on various movements and groupings of poets, placing writers in literary history and indicating the currents and countercurrents whose interaction generated the category of modernism as it is now broadly conceived. The third section traces the arcs of twenty-one poets’ careers, illustrated by analyses of key works. The Companion thus offers breadth in its presentation of historical and literary contexts and depth in its attention to individual poets; it brings recent scholarship to bear on the subject of modernist poetry while also providing guidance on poets who are historically important and who are likely to appear on syllabi and to attract critical interest for many years to come. Edited by two highly respected and notable critics in the field, A Companion to Modernist Poetry boasts a varied list of contributors who have produced an intense, focused study of modernist poetry.

Explores critical and creative responses to the contemporary poetry archiveProvides an innovative new dialogue between critics and creative writers on the value and practice of the literary archiveExpandes the scope for understanding perspectives on, and the opposition between, creative and critical relations to archival materialsOpens up a new cross-disciplinary agenda for thinking the archive as both a source for scholarship and a source of inspiration for creative practiceThese 13 newly commissioned chapters examine the impact of archival poetry collections on both literary scholarship and poetic practice. They examine what we can learn from the drafts, notebooks and personal libraries left behind by poets and look at the ways in which the growth of poetry archives has changed the way poets think about their work. The contributing poets and scholars - including Susan Howe, Sean O'Brien and George Szirtes - present an in-depth account of the significance of poetry archives for contemporary literature. The collection provides a new cross-disciplinary agenda for thinking about the archive as both a source for scholarship and inspiration for creative practice.