The point is to change it : poetry and criticism in the continuing present PDF
Preview The point is to change it : poetry and criticism in the continuing present
The Point Is To Change It MODERN AND CONTEMPORARY POETICS SERIES EDITORS Charles Bernstein Hank Lazer SERIES ADVISORY BOARD Maria Damon Rachel Blau DuPlessis Alan Golding Susan Howe Nathaniel Mackey Jerome McGann Harryette Mullen Aldon Nielsen Marjorie Perloff Joan Retallack Ron Silliman Lorenzo Thomas Jerry Ward The Point Is To Change It Poetry and Criticism in the Continuing Present Jerome McGann THE UNIVERSITY OF ALABAMA PRESS Tuscaloosa Copyright © 2007 The University of Alabama Press Tuscaloosa, Alabama 35487-0380 All rights reserved Manufactured in the United States of America Typeface: Baskerville ∞ The paper on which this book is printed meets the minimum requirements of American National Standard for Information Sciences-Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI Z39.48-1984. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data McGann, Jerome J. The point is to change it : poetry and criticism in the continuing present / Jerome McGann. p. cm. (Modern and Contemporary Poetics) Includes bibliograhical references and index ISBN-13: 978-0-8173-1551-1 (alk. paper) ISBN-10: 0-8173-1551-9 (alk. paper) ISBN-13: 978-0-8173-5408-4 (pbk. : alk. paper) ISBN-10: 0-8173-5408-5 (pbk. : alk. paper) 1. American poetry—20th century—History and criticism. 2. Experimental poetry, American—History and criticism. 3. Modernism (Literature) 4. Poet- ics. 5. Criticism. I. Title. PS323.5.M395 2007 811′.509112—dc22 2006024306 For Charles and Johanna We detest these depthless pretenses—these present-tense verbs, expressed pell-mell. We prefer genteel speech, where sense redeems senselessness. —Christian Bök, Eunoia. Contents Acknowledgments ix The Argument xi Poetry and the Privilege of Historical Backwardness xiii 1. Philological Investigations 1 PART I. IT MUST BE ABSTRACT 2. Truth in the Body of Falsehood 21 3. The Alphabet, Spelt from Silliman’s Leaves 44 4. The Apparatus of Loss: Bruce Andrews Writing 65 PART II. IT MUST CHANGE 5. Art and Error, with Special Thanks to the Poetry of Robert Duncan 83 6. Private Enigmas and Critical Functions, with Special Thanks to the Poetry of Charles Bernstein 98 7. From Sight to Shenandoah 125 PART III. IT MUST GIVE PLEASURE 8. Marxism, Romanticism, Postmodernism: An American Case History 139 9. Looney Tunes and Unheard Melodies: (cid:45) An Oulipian Colonescapade, with a Critique of “The Great-Ape Love Song Corpus” and Its Lexicon 166 PART IV. CONTINUING PRESENT 10. The Evidence of Things Not Seen: A Play 183 viii / Contents 11. IVANHOE: A Playful Portrait 199 12. Modernity and Complicity: A Conversation with Johanna Drucker 205 Notes 221 Bibliography 231 Index 235 Acknowledgments I wish to thank the editors of the journals who fi rst published some of the materials that appear in this book. In the last two sections I have lifted and reworked parts of the essay “Contemporary Poetry, Alter- nate Routes,” Critical Inquiry 13 (Spring 1987): 624–47. The follow- ing essays are reprinted here more or less exactly as they originally ap- peared: “Truth in the Body of Falsehood (Clark Coolidge’s Poetry),” Parnassus 15 no. 1 (1989): 257–80. “Marxism, Romanticism, and Postmodernism: An American Case History,” South Atlantic Quarterly 88 (Summer 1989): 605–32. “The Alphabet, Spelt from Silliman’s Leaves (A Conversation on the American Longpoem),” South Atlantic Quarterly 89 (Fall 1990): 737–59. “Charles Bernstein’s ‘The Simply’,” in Contemporary Poetry Meets Modern Theory, ed. Antony Easthope and John O. Thompson (Harvester-Wheatsheaf: London, 1991), 34–39. “Art and Error: With Special Reference to the Poetry of Robert Duncan,” Modern Language Studies (special issue on “The Problem of Beauty,” ed. Lisa Samuels) 27 no. 2 (Summer 1997): 9–22. “From Sight to Shenandoah,” The Bellingham Review 20 (Spring 1997): 38–43.
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