The American Landscape in the Poetry of Frost, Bishop, and Ashbery
Subtitle: The House Abandoned (American Literature Readings in the Twenty-First Century)
Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
Published: August 5, 2008
Language: eng
Format: Hardcover
Number of pages: 240
ISBN-13: 9780230603226
Subjects: American - General; Poetry; Literary Criticism / Poetry; Literary Criticism; Literature - Classics / Criticism; 20th century; Abandoned houses in literature; American poetry; History and criticism; Landscape in literature
Description: "Robert Frost, Elizabeth Bishop, and John Ashbery stand out among major American poets - all three shaped the direction and pushed the boundaries of contemporary poetry on an international scale. Drawing on biography, cultural history, and original archival research, MacArthur shows us that these distinctive poets share one surprisingly central trope in their oeuvres: the Romantic scene of the abandoned house. This book scrutinizes the popular notion of Frost as a deeply rooted New Englander, demonstrates that Frost had an underestimated influence on Bishop - whose obsession with travel is the obverse of his preoccupation with houses and dwelling - and questions dominant, anti-biographical readings of Ashbery as an urban-identified poet. As she reads poems that evoke particular landscapes and houses lost and abandoned by these poets, MacArthur also sketches relevant cultural trends, including patterns of rural de-settlement, the transformation of rural economies from agriculture to tourism, and modern America's increasing mobility and rootlessness."--Jacket.