The Open Boat and the Shipwreck of the Singular: American Poetry and the Democratic Ideal

Elizabeth Willis

doi:10.4000/transatlantica.8124

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The Open Boat and the Shipwreck of the Singular: American Poetry and the Democratic Ideal

Journal article

Open access

Peer reviewed

The Open Boat and the Shipwreck of the Singular: American Poetry and the Democratic Ideal

Elizabeth Willis

Transatlantica, Vol.1(1)

01/01/2017

DOI: 10.4000/transatlantica.8124

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https://doi.org/10.4000/transatlantica.8124View

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Abstract

A poet investigates an essential contradiction within American poetry’s counter-tradition. How is it that vanguard works of poetry and prose repeatedly re-enact foundational narratives of Americanness ? What is the wager between being self-made and being part of ? How do scenes of self-determination and conquest play out generically and syntactically ? Throughout the 19th and 20th centuries, the trans-Atlantic movement of poetry, political theory, and property reiterates a tension between singularity and inclusion, political and linguistic representation. Works by Gertrude Stein, George Oppen, and Walt Whitman are considered in relation to the competing pressures of idiolectical invention and public address, of literary making and unmaking.

Details

Title: Subtitle: The Open Boat and the Shipwreck of the Singular: American Poetry and the Democratic Ideal
Creators: Elizabeth Willis
Resource Type: Journal article
Publication Details: Transatlantica, Vol.1(1)
DOI: 10.4000/transatlantica.8124
ISSN: 1765-2766
eISSN: 1765-2766
Language: English
Date published: 01/01/2017
Academic Unit: Writers’ Workshop
Record Identifier: 9984399481502771

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