¡Bemsha SWING!

28 jun 2007

Final Exam on Surrealism in American Poetry

Is "surrealism" a style? A method? A movement? A tone?

"We sailed the Indian Ocean for a dime."

Is that surrealism? Why do people call things surrealist that ain't?

"Who are the great poets of our time, and what are their names?"

When did having a book cover with a Magritte painting become the cliché that it now is? A Joseph Cornell box?

Is Russell Edson a surrealist? Why or why not? Why is Max Jacob a more influential model than André Breton?

What was surrealism? What wasn't it? When did it stop being what is was or wasn't?

Is Merwin a surrealist? Spicer? Wright? Ashbery? Lorca? Why is "surrealism" so boring? Why didn't Roland Barthes like it?

(Ron Padgett is not a surrealist.)

Is this a surrealist poem? Explain.

6 comentarios:

John dijo...: The unconscious by definition can't be written.

"What we can't speak of, we must pass over in silence."

Ludwig's right -- if your only mode of sound-making is verbal.

Aaooohhhwoooooo, $%&*!@~

!!!

xxooo; 11:17 a. m.
Jonathan dijo...: Well... no. If there is such a thing as the unconscious mind, it will be present in writing as well as anywhere else. For example, a phrase pops into the poet's head, "I sailed the Indian Ocean for a dime." He doesn't necessarily know what it means or where it comes from. It comes, quite literally, from a part of the mind that is not conscious. A second before the phrase was not there, then it was! It doesn't make sense to say that the poet "intends" a particular meaning with this phrase, either. There is no "conscious meaning." It would be impossible to write anything with only "consciousness" because consciousness itself is not the source. It is the place where unconscious ideas get noticed.; 11:42 a. m.
John dijo...: I agree -- consciousness is limited. So, to that extent, the unconscious is always the one doing the writing, to at least some degree.

But once the dimely Indian Ocean sail-trip "comes from" the unconscious, it is no longer wholly unconscious either. It couldn't be written until it "came from."

All language is icebergian. And Rube Goldbergian.; 12:48 p. m.
Andrew Shields dijo...: Jeez, you're on a roll: "consciousness itself is not the source. It is the place where unconscious ideas get noticed." Another great Mayhewism.

Or is it Mayhewian? Mayhewbergian?; 1:56 p. m.
michael dijo...: "Surrealism" was a moment...

http://graywyvern.livejournal.com/2007/07/03/

m.; 1:32 p. m.
Jesse dijo...: Just give me an A.; 5:56 p. m.

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Blurbs & Reviews

"Jonathan Mayhew’s new work belongs to a certain class of surprising books: those so obviously necessary once they appear that it apparently required a stroke of genius to come up with the idea for them."

--Daniel Katz

"Jonathan Mayhew's Lorca is less the distinctive Spanish poet, whose murder in 1936 marked the beginning of the Civil War, than he is an American invention. From the 1940s to the end of the century, our poets have invoked Lorca-in translation, of course-as a Romantic, exotic, radical, and, in many cases, gay icon-the poet of mystery and the duende. The Lorca myth, Mayhew argues persuasively, has enriched American lyric, but it has also been an obstacle to a more adequately grounded understanding of Spanish poetry in the 20th century. Apocryphal Lorca is revisionist criticism at its most acute."

-Marjorie Perloff

"Enhanced by copious notes and an excellent bibliography, this book offers a perceptive, intriguing assessment of the Garcia Lorca created by the postwar generation of American poets." (Choice )

"Mayhew is a critic who is at the top of his game; he combines a breadth of knowlege of the field with acute analysis."

--John C. Wilcox, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

"Let me just cut through all the usual, boring book review preliminaries and say the following thing: Jonathan Mayhew has, in Apocryphal Lorca, written an amazing book. "

--Brandon Holmquest, Calque

"The great merit of Mayhew's study is his sustained effort to document and interrogate Lorca's reception, unique among American encounters with foreign literatures in its nature and extent."

--Lawrence Venuti, TLS.

"Se trata de Jonathan Mayhew y su extraordinario estudio Apocryphal Lorca. Translation, Parody, Kitsch. Esta obra se ocupa no de García Lorca sino de cómo los escritores estadounidenses han reinventado a Lorca, desde Spicer y Rothenberg hasta O’Hara y Koch. Asimismo, es una discusión de la Deep Image —¡cuánto hay que desmenuzar de ese capítulo!— y la manera en que la poética norteamericana se ha apropiado de lo lorqueano (o lorcaesco) y del concepto de lo 'otro' que éste representa. Éste es un libro repleto de sutilezas, de tesis, apuntes, datos."

--Heriberto Yépez

"Apocryphal Lorca, sin embargo, es mucho más que un estudio de las vidas posteriores de Lorca en la poesía americana entre principios de los años 50 y 70. También ofrece un acercamiento histórico a la traducción de su obra, descubriendo reseñas de prensa significativas y discurriendo acerca de reconocimientos críticos. El texto es elegante y fresco; el análisis amplio e históricamente específico."

--María Delgado, Revista de Literatura

¡Bemsha SWING!

28 jun 2007

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