Limit search to available items
Book Cover
E-book
Author McGann, Jerome J

Title Black riders : the visible language of modernism / Jerome McGann
Published Princeton, N.J. : Princeton University Press, ©1993

Copies

Description 1 online resource (xvi, 196 pages : illustrations
Series Book collections on Project MUSE
Contents Introduction: Modernism and the Renaissance of Printing, with Particular Reference to the Writing of Yeats, Stein, and Dickinson -- pt. 1. A Revolution of the Word. 1. "Thing to Mind": The Materialist Aesthetic of William Morris. 2. Composition as Explanation (of Modern and Postmodern Poetries) -- pt. 2. Dichtung und Wahrheit. 3. The Truth of Poetry. An Argument. 4. The Poetry of Truth. A Dialogue (on Dialogue)
Summary "English literature," Yeats once noted, "has all but completely shaped itself in the printing press." Finding this true particularly of modernist writing, Jerome McGann demonstrates the extraordinary degree to which modernist styles are related to graphic and typographic design, to printed letters--"black riders" on a blank page--that create language for the eye. He sketches the relation of modernist writing to key developments in book design, beginning with the nineteenth-century renaissance of printing, and demonstrates the continued interest of postmodern writers in the "visible language" of modernism. McGann then offers a philosophical investigation into the relation of knowledge and truth to this kind of imaginative writing. Exploring the work of writers like William Morris, Emily Dickinson, W.B. Yeats, Ezra Pound, and Gertrude Stein, as well as Laura Riding and Bob Brown, he shows how each exploits the visibilities of language, often by aligning their work with older traditions of so-called Adamic language. McGann argues that in modernist writing, philosophical nominalism emerges as a key aesthetic point of departure. Such writing thus develops a pragmatic and performative "answer to Plato" in the matter of poetry's relation to truth and philosophy. -- Book cover
Analysis English poetry
United States
Bibliography Includes bibliographical references and index
Subject Morris, William, 1834-1896 -- Influence
SUBJECT Morris, William, 1834-1896 -- Influence
Morris, William, 1834-1896 fast
Subject English poetry -- 20th century -- History and criticism
Modernism (Literature) -- English-speaking countries
American poetry -- 20th century -- History and criticism
Visual poetry -- History and criticism
Book design -- English-speaking countries
Art and literature -- English-speaking countries
Printing -- English-speaking countries
LITERARY CRITICISM / American / General
American poetry
Art and literature
Book design
English poetry
Influence (Literary, artistic, etc.)
Modernism (Literature)
Printing
Visual poetry
Visuelle Poesie
Typografie
Lyrik
Englisch
Buchgestaltung
Dichtkunst.
Modernisme (cultuur)
Typografie.
Boekkunst.
Engels.
Amerikaans.
Modernisme (art) -- États-Unis.
English-speaking countries
USA
Englisch.
Genre/Form Criticism, interpretation, etc.
Form Electronic book
LC no. 92029109
ISBN 9780691221465
0691221464