Author Archives: dixmt

Jeffers in the Canon

My final project takes a look at the critical reputation of Jeffers across Modernism and beyond its time-frame by analyzing the critical review of the poet’s work, mainly revolving around four of his books of poetry: Flagons and Apples, Californians, “Tamar and Other … Continue reading

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Marianne Moore’s Torrid Family Life

A review recently published in the New Criterion by Bruce Bawer of a new Marianne Moore biography caught my attention this week. The review begins by chastising a decades old biography penned by Charles Molesworth, a biographer Bawer accuses of … Continue reading

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Jeffers in the Canon

For my final, final project I would like to trace Robinson Jeffers’s place within the literary canon by analyzing the book reviews and criticisms contemporary with his work along with the recent reviews of scholars who attribute the poet with … Continue reading

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William Burford, March 1950

William Burford was an American modernist poet who now is most often described by the Internet as the friend of the more renowned poet James Merrill. The poet appeared in Poetry Magazine several times between 1949 and 1953. Based on … Continue reading

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Langston Hughes’s Diverse Blues Influences

In his article “To the Tune of Those Weary Blues” Steven Tracy outlines the influences of blues music in Langston Hughes’s poetry, beginning with the poet’s youth in Lawrence, Kansas outside of Kansas City from 1902-15 and his brief period in … Continue reading

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Imitation Originals

Northrop Frye said that “no poet sits down with a pencil and some blank paper and eventually produces a new poem in a special act of creation ex nihilo.” That is, no poet produces a poem completely independent of poetic … Continue reading

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Marianne Moore’s Big Break in The Egoist

Marianne Moore’s poem “The Fish” was first published in August 1918 in the London based literary magazine The Egoist, which was published from 1914 through 1919. The periodical is now widely considered to be the most valuable source of English … Continue reading

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Marshland Imitation of Doolittle’s “Oread”

Hilda Doolittle’s “Oread,” one of her early Imagist works and published in 1914, is terse and singular. The six short lines of the poem’s single sestet focus on just one image–a forest. But the poem’s smart use of diction compares … Continue reading

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“The Convergence of the Twain”: Too Soon

Thomas Hardy’s poetic response to the 1912 Titanic disaster, “The Convergence of the Twain,” takes a contentious approach to the artistic treatment of a traumatic event—an approach the scholar Emerson Brown believes may warrant doubts of Hardy’s moral character. Brown … Continue reading

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A. E. Housman’s 1896

Mahdist War: Battle of Ferkeh In 1896 Britain found herself in the midst of the Mahdist Revolt, a Sudanese war headed by the proclaimed Mahdi, the prophesied redeemer of the faith of Islam, against Turco-Egyptian rule. Britain’s interest in Egyptian … Continue reading

Posted in Chronos: Arts & Culture, Chronos: Science, Technology & Ideas, Chronos: Social Change, Chronos: War, Politics, & Nature | 1 Comment