Title: The song of nature, the song of hope: J.H. Prynne's Pearls that Were
Source document: Brno studies in English. 2016, vol. 42, iss. 2, pp. [57]-68
Extent
[57]-68
-
ISSN0524-6881 (print)1805-0867 (online)
Persistent identifier (DOI): https://doi.org/10.5817/BSE2016-2-4
Stable URL (handle): https://hdl.handle.net/11222.digilib/136096
Type: Article
Language
License: Not specified license
Notice: These citations are automatically created and might not follow citation rules properly.
Abstract(s)
The present article investigates J. H. Prynne's 1999 volume Pearl that Were for the tensions between man's fallibility and the song of nature, which is revealed as poetry's proper domain. Prynne's imagery is traced to various Renaissance, Romantic and contemporary poetic instantiations of the themes of nature and the body as inscribed in language. As a result, the dense allusive texture of Pearls that Were is shown to be underlain with a conflict between the dominance-obsessed but ailing man and an ever more silent voice of poetry, which is here demonstrated to be a composite trope of marginalised figures: from fauna and flora, to the impoverished, all the way to women. Finally, against the destitute background, I argue that the volume offers hope that runs counter to maladies the volume thematises.
Note
When completing the paper the author has been supported by the Foundation for Polish Science (FNP).
References
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[4] Anonymous (1983) "The Pain of Love." In: Woods, Frederick (ed.) The Oxford Book of English Traditional Verse. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 65.
[5] Auden, W. H. (1991) Collected Poems. Mendelson, Edward (ed.) New York: Vintage.
[6] Barthes, Roland (1977) Image—Music—Text. Heath, Stephen (trans.). London: Fontana.
[7] Blake, William (1975) Poems and Prophecies. Plowman, Max (ed.) London: Everyman's Library.
[8] Breuer, Heidi (2009) Crafting the Witch: Gendering Magic in Medieval and Early Modern England. New York: Routledge.
[9] Easthope, Anthony (1991) "The Poetry of Ted Hughes: Some Reservations." In: Moulin, Joanny (ed.) Lire Ted Hughes: New Selected Poems 1957–1994. Paris: Editions du Temps.
[10] Eliot, T. S. (2002) Collected Poems 1909-1962. London: Faber and Faber.
[11] Faas, Ekbert (1980) The Unaccommodated Universe. Black Sparrow: Santa Barbara.
[12] Hughes, Ted (1994) Winter Pollen. Occasional Prose. Scammel, William (ed.) London: Faber and Faber.
[13] Keats, John (1973) Poetical Works. Garrod, H. W. (ed.). Oxford: Oxford University Press.
[14] MacNeice, Louis (1979) The Collected Poems of Louis MacNeice. London: Faber and Faber.
[15] Marvell, Andrew (1984) The Complete Poems. DeF. Lord, George (ed.). London: David Campbell Publishers.
[16] Mellors, Anthony (2005) Late Modernist Poetics: From Pound to Prynne. Manchester: Manchester University Press.
[17] Mengham, Rod (2009) "'A Free Hand to Refuse Everything': Politics and Intricacy in the Work of J. H. Prynne." In: Brinton, Ian (ed.) A Manner of Utterance. The Poetry of J. H. Prynne. Exeter: Shearsman Books, 69–82.
[18] Mengham, Rod and John Kinsella (eds) (2004) Vanishing Points: New Modernist Poems. Cambridge: Salt.
[19] Nolan, Kevin (2003) "Capital Calves: Undertaking an Overview." Jacket 24. Australian Literary Management. Accessed on 13 Sep. 2016.
[20] Plath, Sylvia (1965) Ariel. New York: Harper & Row.
[21] Pound, Ezra (1920) Hugh Selwyn Mauberley. New York: The Ovid Press.
[22] Prynne, J. H. (1993) Stars, Tigers and the Shape of Words. London: Birkbeck College.
[23] Prynne, J. H. (2001) The that Haue Powre to Hurt. A Specimen of a Commentary on Shakespeares Sonnets, 94. Cambridge: n.p., 2001.
[24] Prynne, J. H. (2004) Poems. Tarset: Bloodaxe.
[25] Prynne, J. H. (2007) Field Notes: "The Solitary Reaper" and Others. Cambridge: Cambridge Printers, 2007.
[26] Reeve, N. H. and Richard Kerridge (1995) Nearly Too Much: The Poetry of J. H. Prynne. Liverpool: Liverpool University Press.
[27] Shakespeare, William (1964) The Tempest. Longbaum, Robert (ed.). New York: Signet.
[28] Shelley, Percy Bysshe (1951) Shelley: Selected Poetry, Prose and Letters. Glover, A. S. B. (ed.). London: The Nonesuch Press.
[29] Wordsworth, William (1975) Selected Poems. Walford Davies, Damian (ed.). London: David Campbell Publishers.
[30] Yeats, W. B. (2007) The Collected Works of W. B. Yeats: Volume IV, Early Essays. Finneran, Richard J. and George Bornstein (eds.). New York: Scribner.