Wallace Stevens and pre-Socratic philosophy
Subtitle: metaphysics and the play of violence
By: Daniel Tompsett
Series: Routledge interdisciplinary perspectives on literature -- 9
Publisher: Routledge
Published: 2012
Place of publication: New York
Language: eng
Number of pages: 262
ISBN-13: 9780415507585
Subjects: Metaphysics in literature; Ancient Philosophy; Criticism and interpretation; History
Description: "This book studies Wallace Stevens and pre-Socratic poetic philosophy, showing how concepts that animate Stevens' poetry parallel concepts found in the works of Parmenides, Heraclitus, Empedocles, and Xenophanes. Tompsett traces the transition of pre-Socratic ideas into poetry and philosophy of the post-Kantian period, assessing the impact that the mythologies associated with pre-Socratism have had on structures of metaphysical thought that are still found in poetry and philosophy today. This transition is treated as becoming increasingly important as poetic and philosophic forms have progressively taken on the existential burden of our post-theological age. Tompsett argues that Stevens' poetry 'plays' its audience into an ontological ground in an effort to show that his 'reduction of metaphysics' is not dry philosophical imposition, but is enacted by our encounter with the poems themselves. Through an analysis of the language and form of Stevens' poems, Tompsett uncovers the mythology his poetry shares with certain pre-Socratics and with Greek tragedy. This shows how such mythic rhythms are apparent within the work of Friedrich Nietzsche, Martin Heidegger and Hans-Georg Gadamer, and how these rhythms release a poetic understanding of the violence of a 'reduction of metaphysics.'"--Publisher's website.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references and index.