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Dr Drew Milne, Modernist poetics: texts, paratexts and the space of criticism
The implosion of traditional conceptions of poetic form has long been recognized as a characteristic
feature of modernist poetics, but less often recognised is the resulting tension between poetry and
prose in the work of major modernist writers, and the difficulties this creates for the development of
modernist criticism. While the assimilation of modernist writing has often positioned such writing
within pre-modernist genres and categories of poetry and prose, modernist writing, not least in the
work of modernist poets, is often written through and against such genres and categories. Whereas
French modernist poetics explore modes associated with 'prose poems' and 'prose poetry', English
language poetics has worked through more diffuse conceptions of 'free verse', with a number of
important works combining sections of prose statement, prose poetics and radicalised poetic forms.
Among different poetic practices, some longer poetic sequences oscillate between prose and poetry,
questioning the status of 'poetry' as such; some writers move through poetry into new conceptions of
prose; while other writers develop poetic essays which work through differences between prose and
poetic argument. Whereas pre-modernist writers more often provided prefaces, manifestoes and
critical writings which can be read in conjunction with poems, modernist poetics develop less stable
compounds and hybrids. This seminar explores some of the formal and critical issues, by looking at
the work of modernist writers for whom such problems were significant, and by focusing on some key
texts and paratexts. What follows is an outline sketch of the key texts. Selections and more detailed
readings will be proved for those taking the course:
Seminar 1: Between vorticism and futurism: blasting away the smokescreens of imagism:
a) Ezra Pound, Gaudier =Brzeska: A Memoir (1916) and Hugh Selwyn Mauberley
b) Blast, ed Wyndham Lewis
c) Mina Loy, Aphorisms on Futurism and selected poems
Seminar 2: Analogic cubism?: Gertrude Stein’s portraits and composition as explanation
a) Gertrude Stein, ‘Portraits and other short writings’ including selected portraits, Tender
Buttons (1912-4), and ‘Composition as Explanation’ from Writings 1903-1932.
b) William Carlos Williams, ‘The Work of Gertrude Stein’ (1930), Imaginations
c) Mina Loy, ‘Gertrude Stein’, Last Lunar Baedecker, ed. Roger Conover.
Seminar 3: Prose and poetry differentials: the early sequences of William Carlos Williams:
a) Williams Carlos Williams, ‘Kora In Hell: Improvisations’ (1920), and ‘Spring and All’
(1923) Imaginations (New York: New Directions, 1970).
b) Pound/Williams: Selected Letters of Ezra Pound and William Carlos Williams, ed. Hugh
Witemeyer (New York, 1996), pp. 3-45
Seminar 4: open field poetics and indeterminacy: Charles Olson & John Cage
a) Charles Olson, Selected Writings, ed. Robert Creeley
b) John Cage, Silence: Lectures and Writings and I-VI
Seminar 5: poetic artifice / poetry as criticism: Veronica Forrest-Thomson & Charles Bernstein
a) Veronica Forrest-Thomson, Poetic Artifice
b) Veronica Forrest-Thomson, selected poems from Collected Poems and Translations
c) Charles Bernstein, Artifice of Absorption and A Poetics
Seminar 6: poems for nothing? Samuel Beckett and the ends of prose:
a) Samuel Beckett, Texts for Nothing (1950-1952), in various editions, including small books
entitled Texts for Nothing and in Collected Shorter Prose or The Complete Short Prose.
b) Samuel Beckett, Nohow On (London: Calder, 1989) [Nohow on collects Company; Ill Seen
Ill Said; and Worstward Ho. These texts are available in various editions.]