Pastoral, Pragmatism, and Twentieth-Century American Poetry

by Mikkelsen, Ann Marie

• ISBN13: 9780230105836
• ISBN10: 0230105831
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2011-01-15
• Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan

Summary

In the first expansive study of American pastoral since Leo Marx'sThe Machine in the Garden, Mikkelsen reinvigorates discussion of this literary mode as a form of cultural commentary whose subjects extend beyond the simple or rustic life to encompass the major social, economic, and political transformations of the past century.

Author Biography

Ann Marie Mikkelsen is Assistant Professor of English at Florida State University.

Table of Contents

Introduction * Pastoral Ideology and the Pragmatic Response * Tramp Culture and the Cult of Pan: Robert Frost’s Pastoral of Class Mobility * “The Truth About Us”: Pastoral, Pragmatism, and William Carlos Williams’s Paterson * “Fat!  Fat!  Fat!  Fat!”:  Wallace Stevens’s Figurations of Masculinity * “The Mooring of Starting Out”: John Ashbery’s Pastoral Origins * American Pastoral Futures