The Decomposer's Art: Ideas of Music in the Poetry of Wallace Stevens: 1 (New Connections Studies in Interdisciplinarity) - Hardcover

Holmes, Barbara

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0820410004 ISBN 13: 9780820410005

Publisher: Peter Lang Publishing Inc, 1990

Synopsis

This comprehensive study of the ideas of music in Wallace Stevens' poetry «rereads» Stevens as a poet whose compositional strategies assimilate musical forms and performative programs. The «decomposer» is the poet of qualification, who constantly explores the validity of «developing variation» as the best means for creating art not limited by system or medium. As both subject and strategy for poetry, music becomes Stevens' most frequently used figure connecting his art to the rhythms of modern life. Thus, to disregard Stevens' ideas of music is to misread the text.

About this title

Review:

-Wallace Stevens' connections with the plastic arts have been the subject of intense study, but Dr. Holmes' work is the first extended examination of the vital role played by music in Stevens' poetry. Dr. Holmes is uniquely qualified to demonstrate the effects of his musical interests on Stevens' themes and methods of composition, and she goes beyond this to a detailed study of several musical settings of major Stevens works. This perceptive and important work is a major contribution to Stevens criticism.- (John M. Muste, Emeritus Professor of English, The Ohio State University) -...this is a very fine work that is imaginatively conceived, thoroughly researched, and judicious in its conclusion. As the first volume in Peter Lang's Interdisciplinarity series it sets a high standard and begins the series on a high note.- (William E. Grim, Yearbook of Interdisciplinary Studies in the Fine Arts)
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About this edition

• Publisher: Peter Lang Publishing Inc
• Publication date: 1990
• ISBN 10: 0820410004
• ISBN 13: 9780820410005
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 177