Majestic Indolence

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 late eighteenth century. In particular, the years surrounding the French revolution are marked by the rich variety of experiments conducted by these poets on this topic. Countering recent politically/ideologically motivated literary theory, Spiegelman looks, instead, at how the poems work. He argues for aesthetic appreciation and critique, which, he feels, the Romantic pastoral begs for in its celebration of nature and the sublime. The book concludes with Spiegelman following the Romantic legacy and its transformation into America (in the form of Whitman), and, further, into the twentieth century (in Frost's poems).

Majestic Indolence examines the theme of indolence - in both its positive and negative forms - as it appears in the work of four canonical Romantic poets. Wordsworth's "wise passiveness", Coleridge's "dejection" and numbing torpor, Shelley's experiments with pastoral dolce far niente, and Keats's figures of "delicious diligent indolence" are treated as individual manifestations of a common theme. Spiegelman pursues the trope of indolence to its origins in the economic, medical, philosophical, psychological, religious, and literary discourses from the middle ages to the late eighteenth century. Offering an alternative to recent politically and ideologically motivated literary theory, Spiegelman looks closely at how the poems work. He argues for renewed appreciation of poetic style, literary formalism, and aesthetics as the best gauge to the Romantic treatment of nature and the sublime. The book concludes by examining the transformation of English Romanticism at the hands of two American heirs, Walt Whitman and Robert Frost.

New York City was the site of a remarkable cultural and artistic renaissance during the 1950s and '60s. In the first monograph to treat all five major poets of the New York School-John Ashbery, Barbara Guest, Kenneth Koch, Frank O'Hara, and James Schuyler-Mark Silverberg examines this rich period of cross-fertilization between the arts. Silverberg uses the term 'neo-avant-garde' to describe New York School Poetry, Pop Art, Conceptual Art, Happenings, and other movements intended to revive and revise the achievements of the historical avant-garde, while remaining keenly aware of the new problems facing avant-gardists in the age of late capitalism. Silverberg highlights the family resemblances among the New York School poets, identifying the aesthetic concerns and ideological assumptions they shared with one another and with artists from the visual and performing arts. A unique feature of the book is Silverberg's annotated catalogue of collaborative works by the five poets and other artists. To comprehend the coherence of the New York School, Silverberg demonstrates, one must understand their shared commitment to a reconceptualized idea of the avant-garde specific to the United States in the 1950s and '60s, when the adversary culture of the Beats was being appropriated and repackaged as popular culture. Silverberg's detailed analysis of the strategies the New York School poets used to confront the problem of appropriation tells us much about the politics of taste and gender during the period, and suggests new ways of understanding succeeding generations of artists and poets.

Robinson Crusoe recognizes it is foolish to leave for the open seas; nevertheless, he boards the ship. William Wordsworth of The Prelude sees the immense poetic task ahead of him, but instead of beginning work, he procrastinates by going for a walk. Centering on this sort of intentionally irrational action, originally defined as " akrasia" by the ancient Greeks and "weakness of will" in early Christian thought, Against Better Judgment argues that the phenomenon takes on renewed importance in the long eighteenth century. In treating human minds and bodies as systems and machines, Enlightenment philosophers did not account for actions that may be undermotivated, contradictory, or self-betraying. A number of authors, from Daniel Defoe and Samuel Johnson to Jane Austen and John Keats, however, took up the phenomenon in inventive ways. Thomas Manganaro traces how English novelists, essayists, and poets of the period sought to represent akrasia in ways philosophy cannot, leading them to develop techniques and ideas distinctive to literary writing, including new uses of irony, interpretation, and contradiction. In attempting to give shape to the ways people knowingly and freely fail themselves, these authors produced a new linguistic toolkit that distinguishes literature’s epistemological advantages when it comes to writing about people.

Goodman traces connections between Georgic verse and developments in other spheres from the late seventeenth to the early nineteenth centuries.

Turning Points demonstrates the role of style and form in promoting and shaping cultural development by studying important critics, and analyzing cultural change in literature, music, art, and philosophy.

Industry and the Creative Mind takes a radically new look at the figure of the eccentric, alienated writer in American literature and entertainment from 1790 to 1860. Traditional scholarship takes for granted that the eccentric writer, modeled by such Romantic beings as Lord Byron and brought to life for American audiences by the gloomy person of Edgar Allan Poe, was a figure of rebellion against the excesses of modern commercial culture and industrial life. By contrast, Industry and the Creative Mind argues that in the United States myths of writerly moodiness, alienation, and irresponsibility predated the development of a commercial arts and entertainment industry and instead of forming a site of rebellion from this industry formed a bedrock for its development. Looking at the careers of a number of early American writers---Joseph Dennie, Nathaniel Parker Willis, Edgar Allan Poe, Fanny Fern, as well as a host of now forgotten souls who peopled the twilight worlds of hack fiction and industrial literature---this book traces the way in which early nineteenth-century American arts and entertainment systems incorporated writerly eccentricity in their "logical" economic workings, placing the mad, rebellious writer at the center of the industry's productivity and success.

A New Handbook of Literary Terms offers a lively, informative guide to words and concepts that every student of literature needs to know. Mikics’s definitions are essayistic, witty, learned, and always a pleasure to read. They sketch the derivation and history of each term, including especially lucid explanations of verse forms and providing a firm sense of literary periods and movements from classicism to postmodernism. The Handbook also supplies a helpful map to the intricate and at times confusing terrain of literary theory at the beginning of the twenty-first century: the author has designated a series of terms, from New Criticism to queer theory, that serves as a concise but thorough introduction to recent developments in literary study. Mikics’s Handbook is ideal for classroom use at all levels, from freshman to graduate. Instructors can assign individual entries, many of which are well-shaped essays in their own right. Useful bibliographical suggestions are given at the end of most entries. The Handbook’s enjoyable style and thoughtful perspective will encourage students to browse and learn more. Every reader of literature will want to own this compact, delightfully written guide.

Spiegelman looks closely at a handful of contemporary poets including John Ashbery, Amy Clampitt, Jorie Graham, Charles Tomlinson and Charles Wright, to illustrate the art of description in poetry.