Lyric Time offers a detailed critical reading of a particularly difficult poet, an analysis of the dominance of temporal structures and concerns in the body of her poetry, and finally, an important original contribution to a theory of the lyric. Poised between analysis of Emily Dickinson's poetic texts and theoretical inquiry, Lyric Time suggests that the temporal problems of Dickinson's poems are frequently exaggerations of the features that distinguish the lyric as a genre. "It is precisely the distance some of Dickinson ...
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Lyric Time offers a detailed critical reading of a particularly difficult poet, an analysis of the dominance of temporal structures and concerns in the body of her poetry, and finally, an important original contribution to a theory of the lyric. Poised between analysis of Emily Dickinson's poetic texts and theoretical inquiry, Lyric Time suggests that the temporal problems of Dickinson's poems are frequently exaggerations of the features that distinguish the lyric as a genre. "It is precisely the distance some of Dickinson's poems go toward the far end of coherence, precisely the outlandishness of their extremity, that allows us to see, magnified, the fine workings of more conventional lyrics," writes Sharon Cameron. Lyric Time is written for the literary audience at large-Dickinsonians, romanticists, theorists, anyone interested in American poetry, or in poetry at all, and especially anyone who admires a risky book that succeeds.
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Seller's Description:
Good. 1979. Hardcover. Good clean copy in dustwrapper with some shelf wear, some nicks and tears to DW and some edgewear to DW.....We ship daily from our Bookshop.
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Good. Ships from UK in 48 hours or less (usually same day). Your purchase helps support Sri Lankan Children's Charity 'The Rainbow Centre'. Ex-library, so some stamps and wear, but in good overall condition. 100% money back guarantee. We are a world class secondhand bookstore based in Hertfordshire, United Kingdom and specialize in high quality textbooks across an enormous variety of subjects. We aim to provide a vast range of textbooks, rare and collectible books at a great price. Our donations to The Rainbow Centre have helped provide an education and a safe haven to hundreds of children who live in appalling conditions. We provide a 100% money back guarantee and are dedicated to providing our customers with the highest standards of service in the bookselling industry.
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This is an ex-library book and may have the usual library/used-book markings inside. This book has hardback covers. Book contains pencil markings. In fair condition, suitable as a study copy. Re-bound by library. Please note the Image in this listing is a stock photo and may not match the covers of the actual item, 700grams, ISBN: 0801821711.
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Very Good in Very Good jacket. First edition. Review copy, with the publisher's review slip laid in at the front. Text is unmarked; pages are bright, though the page edges are age toned. The top edge of the pages and the end pages are foxed. Binding leans. Dust jacket is worn around the edges, with small chips missing from the paper at the corners and at the head and base of the spine.
Sharon Cameron?s Lyric Time is a classic study of Emily Dickinson?s poetry. In a number of chapters analysing some of ED?s lyrics and poetry by others, it elucidates themes such as naming, rage, representation and death, language and mourning, and time, and ends with a chapter considering the lyric more widely.
I find this work a competent discussion of some of ED?s poems and certainly anyone who reads if will get a flavour of what ED?s is like, but I find that the tone of the work is wrong.
I find, and others have found this too, that the most striking feature of ED?s life and work is that she is one of the best example of what it is like to a be pure poet. ED, because she was able to, retreated into solitude in her life to concentrate on what might be called a poetic existence. The extent to which she was able to do this rare amongst poets, and an index of this the state of her poetry. Many people have reacted to her poetry by asserting that it is fragmentary, unfinished, full of ?mistakes? and bafflingly hard to understand. My interpretation of her poetry is that she was so purely a poet that she left a great deal of it in what might be called its original state, a private mental short-hand version that most poets would have later tidied up for publication and made more explicable at the price of losing some original inspiration.
People who read Cameron?s book will be introduced to the poetic world of ED, but will also be exposed to the author?s implicit attitude that ED didn?t really know what she was doing in the poetry (itself no more than a more sophisticated version of the older ?laughing at the eccentric spinster attitude? in ED criticism). As Cameron diagnoses there is plenty of existential terror, grief and even rage in ED?s poetry, but Cameron misses the humour and the courage of ED?s poetry and above all ?the achieve of, the mastery? of it.
This attitude, for me, ruins not only Cameron?s analysis of ED?s poetry, but her thoughts on the lyric generally, which become merely a post-structural diagnosis of absence. The slant that Cameron takes on post-structuralism is a very Christian one, stressing the absence at the heart of the lyric (ED?s lyrics and the lyric generally). There is no doubt that ED?s thought is firmly rooted in Christianity, but her scheme of thought is one which encompasses absence and is not, ultimately, troubled by it. I prefer Dickinsonianity to Cameron?s version of post-structuralism.
In summary I would recommend this work to ED specialists, but I?d say most people would get more out of simply reading ED?s Collected Poems for themselves.
