The Poet's Holy Craft

The Poet's Holy Craft PDF Author: Matthew C. Brennan
Publisher: Univ of South Carolina Press
ISBN: 161117225X
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 315

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Book Description
A thorough reexamination of Simms as a pioneering voice in American poetry The Poet's Holy Craft represents the first full-length analysis and interpretation of William Gilmore Simms's poetry. Matthew C. Brennan demonstrates the comprehensiveness of Simms's romanticism by examining Simms's poetics, his experimental sonnets, and his deep affinity to William Wordsworth, which especially shows in Simms's pioneering attitudes toward nature and ecology. The poetic career of antebellum Charleston writer William Gilmore Simms (1806-1870) constitutes a cautionary tale of how ambition worthy of John Keats and talent comparable to any American poet before Walt Whitman could not alone guarantee a toehold in the literary canon. Although praised in his lifetime by the likes of Edgar Allan Poe and William Cullen Bryant, Simms as a poet faced virtual erasure until a recent revival of scholarship. Building on the work of James Everett Kibler, Brennan argues that Simms exhibits the influence of British romanticism earlier than do his canonic contemporaries Henry W. Longfellow, Ralph Waldo Emerson, and Henry David Thoreau. Brennan's reappraisal maps Simms's early imitation of neoclassicism and George Lord Byron, and his slightly later absorption of Keats, Percy Bysshe Shelley, and Gothicism. Through study of Simms's letters, reviews, extant lectures, manuscripts, and drafts, Brennan delineates his subject's romantic poetics and offers new insights into his revision process. Brennan finds in Simms an interest in experimentation with the forms and themes of the romantic sonnet that supersedes that of even the British romantics. Noting Simms's deep affinity to Wordsworth, and to a lesser degree Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Brennan portrays Simms as remarkably in advance of Thoreau, although from a Southern context, in the environmental concerns that present themselves in his contemplative poetry and in his life and work at his home, Woodlands plantation. In short The Poet's Holy Craft offers a corrective that rescues Simms from the long shadow cast on his literary legacy by his Confederate affiliations and illumines his original contributions to the romantic verse tradition.

The Poet's Holy Craft

The Poet's Holy Craft PDF Author: Matthew C. Brennan
Publisher: Univ of South Carolina Press
ISBN: 161117225X
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 315

Get Book Here

Book Description
A thorough reexamination of Simms as a pioneering voice in American poetry The Poet's Holy Craft represents the first full-length analysis and interpretation of William Gilmore Simms's poetry. Matthew C. Brennan demonstrates the comprehensiveness of Simms's romanticism by examining Simms's poetics, his experimental sonnets, and his deep affinity to William Wordsworth, which especially shows in Simms's pioneering attitudes toward nature and ecology. The poetic career of antebellum Charleston writer William Gilmore Simms (1806-1870) constitutes a cautionary tale of how ambition worthy of John Keats and talent comparable to any American poet before Walt Whitman could not alone guarantee a toehold in the literary canon. Although praised in his lifetime by the likes of Edgar Allan Poe and William Cullen Bryant, Simms as a poet faced virtual erasure until a recent revival of scholarship. Building on the work of James Everett Kibler, Brennan argues that Simms exhibits the influence of British romanticism earlier than do his canonic contemporaries Henry W. Longfellow, Ralph Waldo Emerson, and Henry David Thoreau. Brennan's reappraisal maps Simms's early imitation of neoclassicism and George Lord Byron, and his slightly later absorption of Keats, Percy Bysshe Shelley, and Gothicism. Through study of Simms's letters, reviews, extant lectures, manuscripts, and drafts, Brennan delineates his subject's romantic poetics and offers new insights into his revision process. Brennan finds in Simms an interest in experimentation with the forms and themes of the romantic sonnet that supersedes that of even the British romantics. Noting Simms's deep affinity to Wordsworth, and to a lesser degree Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Brennan portrays Simms as remarkably in advance of Thoreau, although from a Southern context, in the environmental concerns that present themselves in his contemplative poetry and in his life and work at his home, Woodlands plantation. In short The Poet's Holy Craft offers a corrective that rescues Simms from the long shadow cast on his literary legacy by his Confederate affiliations and illumines his original contributions to the romantic verse tradition.

On Poetry and Craft

On Poetry and Craft PDF Author: Theodore Roethke
Publisher: Copper Canyon Press
ISBN: 1619320924
Category : Poetry
Languages : en
Pages : 225

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Book Description
"One of the virtues of good poetry is the fact that it irritates the mediocre." Theodore Roethke was one of the most famous and outspoken poets and poetry teachers this country has ever known. In this volume of selected prose, Roethke articulates his commitments to imaginative possibilities, offers tender advice to young writers, and zings darts at stuffed shirts, lightweights and fools. "Art is our defense against hysteria and death." With the assistance of Roethke's widow, this volume has been edited to include the finest selections from out of print collections of prose and journal entries. Focused on the making and teaching of poetry,On Poetry and Craft will be prized in the classroom-and outrageous Roethke quotes will once again pepper our conversations. "You must believe a poem is a holy thing, a good poem, that is." Theodore Roethke was of an illustrious generation of poets which included Sexton, Plath, Lowell, Berryman, and like them he received nearly every major award in poetry, including the Pulitzer Prize and twice the National Book Award. In spite of his fame, he remained a legendary teacher, known for the care and attention he gave to his students, poets such as James Wright, Carolyn Kizer, Tess Gallagher, and Richard Hugo. Roethke died on August 1, 1963, while swimming in a friend's pool. "But before I'm reduced to an absolute pulp by my own ambivalence, I must say goodbye. The old lion perisheth. Nymphs, I wish you the swoops of many fish. May your search for the abiding be forever furious." On Poetry and Craft I am overwhelmed by the beautiful disorder of poetry, the eternal virginity of words. The poem, even a short time after being written, seems no miracle; unwritten, it seems something beyond the capacity of the gods. We can't escape what we are, and I'm afraid many of my notions about verse (I haven't too many) have been conditioned by the fact that for nearly 25 years I've been trying to teach the young something about the nature of verse by writing it--and that with very little formal knowledge of the subject or previous instruction. So it's going to be lik

Reading William Gilmore Simms

Reading William Gilmore Simms PDF Author: Todd Hagstette
Publisher: Univ of South Carolina Press
ISBN: 1611177731
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 632

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Book Description
Engaging approaches to the vast output of South Carolina's premier man of letters William Gilmore Simms was the best known and certainly the most accomplished writer of the mid-nineteenth-century South. His literary ascent began early, with his first book being published when he was nineteen years old and his reputation as a literary genius secured before he turned thirty. Over a career that spanned nearly forty-five years, he established himself as the American South's premier man of letters—an accomplished poet, novelist, short fiction writer, essayist, historian, dramatist, cultural journalist, biographer, and editor. In Reading William Gilmore Simms, Todd Hagstette has created an anthology of critical introductions to Simms's major publications, including those recently brought back into print by the University of South Carolina Press, offering the first ever primer compendium of the author's vast output. Simms was a Renaissance man of American letters, lauded in his time by both popular audiences and literary icons alike. Yet the author's extensive output, which includes nearly eighty published volumes, can be a barrier to his study. To create a gateway to reading and studying Simms, Hagstette has assembled thirty-eight essays by twenty-four scholars to review fifty-five Simms works. Addressing all the author's major works, the essays provide introductory information and scholarly analysis of the most crucial features of Simms's literary achievement. Arranged alphabetically by title for easy access, the book also features a topical index for more targeted inquiry into Simms's canon. Detailing the great variety and astonishing consistency of Simms's thought throughout his long career as well as examining his posthumous reconsideration, Reading William Gilmore Simms bridges the author's genius and readers' growing curiosity. The only work of its kind, this book provides an essential passport to the far-flung worlds of Simms's fecund imagination.

Poems: Southern passages and pictures. Historical and dramatic sketches. Scripture legends. Francesca Da Rimini

Poems: Southern passages and pictures. Historical and dramatic sketches. Scripture legends. Francesca Da Rimini PDF Author: William Gilmore Simms
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 378

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Southern passages and pictures. Historical and dramatic sketches. Scripture legends. Francesca Da Rimini

Southern passages and pictures. Historical and dramatic sketches. Scripture legends. Francesca Da Rimini PDF Author: William Gilmore Simms
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 384

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Tracey the Poet. A Sketch from the Life

Tracey the Poet. A Sketch from the Life PDF Author:
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 240

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The Simms Reader

The Simms Reader PDF Author: William Gilmore Simms
Publisher: University of Virginia Press
ISBN: 9780813920191
Category : Literary Collections
Languages : en
Pages : 444

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Book Description
Long considered a leading literary figure of the Old South, William Gilmore Simms (1806-1870) wrote letters, novels, short fiction, drama, essays, and poetry in his prolific career. Born in Charleston to an old South Carolina family of modest means and raised by a grandmother with whom his father left him after his mother's death, Simms felt a simultaneous sense of loyalty to and alienation from his native region. He was a major intellectual figure on the East Coast before the Civil War but saw his New York publishers abandon him after secession, of which he was a vocal supporter. Simms's novels and poetry have been published in modern editions, and he has been the subject of numerous biographies and critical studies, but until now there has been no collection covering the broad spectrum of his writings. The Simms Reader presents a selection of his nonnovelistic work--letters, short fiction, essays, historical writings, poetry, and epigrams--chosen and introduced by the preeminent Simms scholar John Caldwell Guilds.

The Fallacy Of The Silver Age

The Fallacy Of The Silver Age PDF Author: Omry Ronen
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1134415893
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 174

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Book Description
First Published in 2004. In this original study, Omry Ronen critically examines the term Silver Age, which over the years has gained such wide currency among historians and connoisseurs of twentieth-century Russian culture. His latest research deals with metahistorical and metaliterary value of influential poetic locutions, such as the image of Russia as the sphinx, or the concept of the Silver Age in Russian cultural history.

Pirates and Devils

Pirates and Devils PDF Author: Nicholas G. Meriwether
Publisher: Univ of South Carolina Press
ISBN: 1611174570
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 270

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Book Description
Two of the final short novels from the literary manuscripts of William Gilmore Simms, unfinished before his death Pirates and Devils, edited by Nicholas G. Meriwether and David W. Newton, presents two of the most significant unfinished works by William Gilmore Simms, a prominent public intellectual of the antebellum South and one of the most prolific literary writers of the nineteenth century. These two incomplete works—the pirate romance, "The Brothers of the Coast," and the folk fable, "Sir Will O' Wisp"—are representative of the some of the last major primary texts of Simms's expansive career. Recent scholarship about Simms, including William Gilmore Simms's Unfinished Civil War, reasserts the significance of Simms's postwar writing and makes this volume's contribution timely. Left unfinished at his death, these two substantial fragments represent the last of the major primary texts from the final phase of Simms's life to be published. Together, the texts provide greater insight into Simms's creative process, but more importantly, they show Simms continuing to wrestle with the issues he faced in the aftermath of the Civil War, and they document the creativity and courage that commitment represented—and required. The publication of these fragments makes possible a complete picture of this last phase of Simms's life, as he struggled with the consequences of a conflict that had become the defining event of his life, career, and region.

Grouped Thoughts and Scattered Fancies

Grouped Thoughts and Scattered Fancies PDF Author: William Gilmore Simms
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 74

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