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Full Description
In Dying Modern, one of our foremost literary critics inspires new ways to read, write, and talk about poetry. Diana Fuss does so by identifying three distinct but largely unrecognized voices within the well-studied genre of the elegy: the dying voice, the reviving voice, and the surviving voice. Through her deft readings of modern poetry, Fuss unveils the dramatic within the elegiac: the dying diva who relishes a great deathbed scene, the speaking corpse who fancies a good haunting, and the departing lover who delights in a dramatic exit. Focusing primarily on American and British poetry written during the past two centuries, Fuss maintains that poetry can still offer genuine ethical compensation, even for the deep wounds and shocking banalities of modern death. As dying, loss, and grief become ever more thoroughly obscured from public view, the dead start chattering away in verse. Through bold, original interpretations of little-known works, as well as canonical poems by writers such as Emily Dickinson, Randall Jarrell, Elizabeth Bishop, Richard Wright, and Sylvia Plath, Fuss explores modern poetry's fascination with pre- and postmortem speech, pondering the literary desire to make death speak in the face of its cultural silencing.
Contents
Acknowledgments ix
Introduction 1
1. Dying . . . Words 9
poetry 10
consolation 12
defiance 20
banality 24
newness 31
lastness 35
2. Reviving . . . Corpses 44
comic 46
religious 50
political 57
historical 61
literary 67
poetic 73
3. Surviving . . . Lovers 78
loving 82
waiting 86
leaving 90
refusing 95
existing 98
surviving 102
Conclusion 107
Notes 113
Bibliography 131
Index 141
Copyright Acknowledgments 149
