American Errancy: Empire, Sublimity and Modern Poetry [Hardcover]

Justin Quinn (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 1904558356 | ISBN-13: 978-1904558354 | Publication Date: March 30, 2006

A wide-ranging study of the connection between ideology and the sublime in the work of twentieth-century poets.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"T. S. Eliot praised Henry James for having a mind so fine 'that no idea could violate it'. Quinn shows that American poets can deal with ideas without being violated by them. This study ... belongs in collections strong in modern poetry and American studies." CHOICE June 2006 "Justin Quinn's American Errancy: Empire, Sublimity and Modern Poetry - fulfils the promise of the earlier journal publication of the fine chapter it devotes to Allen Ginsberg. Quinn's invigorating introduction constructs a narrative of the ways in which American culture has grounded itself in the sublime while seeking at times to constrain that sublime within a particular vision of society and social institutions; starting from standard Puritan texts, Quinn traces the ideological implications of the interactions of these terms through Emerson, Whitman, Stevens, Moore, Crane, Ralph Ellison, Leslie Marmon Silko, and others. It's a bracing narrative, which dissents from current accounts of this field with great scope and intelligence - Chapters are devoted to an unusually wide range of poets - T. S. Eliot, A. R. Ammons, Amy Clampitt, and Robert Pinsky, as well as Ginsberg, Graham, Thom Gunn, and Geoffrey Hill - and each is stimulating, with the most notable study perhaps that of Ammons which presents, of flaunts, the author of Sphere as a full-blown poet of empire." YWES [The Year's Work in English Studies] Winter 2008

About the Author

Justin Quinn is Associate Professor at the Charles University, Prague. He has published three volumes of poetry, most recently Fuselage (Gallery, 2002) and in the same year UCD Press published his Gathered Beneath the Storm: Wallace Stevens, Nature and Community. He was a founding editor of the Irish poetry magazine Metre, which he edited with David Wheatley for ten years.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 192 pages
• Publisher: Univ College Dublin Pr (March 30, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1904558356
• ISBN-13: 978-1904558354
• Product Dimensions: 9.5 x 6.4 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #7,174,618 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Discover books, learn about writers, read author blogs, and more.