Guides to Abstraction: Wallace Stevens, Marianne Moore, and Adonis

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Abstract/Contents

Abstract: What is poetic abstraction? This thesis attempts a partial answer to this question by teasing out some criteria for why one poetic gesture of abstraction holds richer speculative possibilities than the next. Through readings of three modernist poets, Wallace Stevens, Marianne Moore, and Adonis, I identify two general modes of abstraction, which I call immanent and a priori abstraction, placing Stevens and Moore in the former category and Adonis in the latter. These methods of constructing and exploring poetic worlds are linked to the different ways they treat the real, which here designates poetry’s impasses or horizons of possibility. Beyond its contributions to studies of each individual poet, this paper's original methodology--based on the axiom that all poetry participates in a generic activity of abstraction--opens doors to a reconceptualization of "world literature."

Type of resource	text
Date created	June 2018

Author	Schott-Rosenfield, Abigail
Primary advisor	Key, Alexander
Advisor	Greene, Roland
Degree granting institution	Stanford University, Department of Comparative Literature

Subject	Comparative Literature
Subject	Division of Literatures Cultures and Languages
Subject	Arabic Literature
Subject	American Literature
Subject	World Literature
Subject	Abstraction
Subject	Modernism
Subject	Poetry
Subject	Wallace Stevens
Subject	Marianne Moore
Subject	Adonis
Genre	Thesis

Location	https://purl.stanford.edu/pd750zh3763

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License: This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial No Derivatives 3.0 Unported license (CC BY-NC-ND).

Preferred Citation: Schott-Rosenfield, Abigail. (2018). Guides to Abstraction: Wallace Stevens, Marianne Moore, and Adonis. Stanford Digital Repository. Available at: https://purl.stanford.edu/pd750zh3763

Undergraduate Theses, Comparative Literature Department, Division of Literatures, Cultures, and Languages, Stanford University.

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