Flint on a bright stone : a revolution of precision and restraint in American, Russian, and German modernism /
Painter, Kirsten Blythe.
Stanford, Calif. : Stanford University Press,
2006.
Includes bibliographical references (p. [245]-272) and index.
The Symbolist background. Who were the Symbolists? -- The legacies of French Symbolism -- Symbolism simplified: three characteristics of Symbolism -- Poetics of the indistinct -- Escape from the earthly world into the otherworld -- The subjective self -- The emergence of tempered modernism -- The collapse of Symbolism and the predecessors of Tempered Modernism. The parallel between Acmeism and Imagism -- The Connection with Rilke -- The relation between Tempered Modernism, Radical Modernism, and Symbolism -- Poetics of hardness -- The alternative traditions. Classical antiquity -- The layers of culture: the poet as architect -- French marble -- Translating China -- The parallel with Japanese Haiku -- Clarity and precision. Imagery: indefinite musicality versus defined precision -- Diction: solemn obscurity versus concise simplicity -- Fragmented words versus clarity of detail -- Collages versus etchings -- The earthly object. Manifestoes of earthliness -- Bringing down the moon -- Seeing the world anew -- The suppression of the self. The self in Radical and Tempered Modernism -- Slices of a society novel: the self becomes a thing -- Thing-poems: the thing becomes the self -- Concise laments: the self absents itself -- A night at the opera: the sardonic commentator -- Subdued love songs. Symbolist and Futurist love songs -- Tempered Modernist love songs.
Poetry
Modernism (Literature)
Symbolism (Literary movement)