Written in an open and eloquent style, this book makes a significant intervention into debates about the direction of American poetics, and argues powerfully for a greater consciousness of political engagement through the genre.
- Steven Matthews, Professor of English Literature, University of Reading, UK,
Reorienting understandings of Adrienne Rich’s later work through her interest in Marx and Marxist politics, this book engages with this overlooked part of her oeuvre through considerations of issues such as race, nationhood, and gender.
From 1983 onward, after she visited revolutionary Nicaragua until the end of her life, Rich’s political vision can best be described as Marxist-Humanist. Until recently, very little attention has been paid to Rich’s “interest” in Marx; there is no in-depth treatment of the effect of Marx’s humanistic philosophy on Rich’s later work, or even on her unwavering, but altered dedication to Women’s Liberation. This book fills this gap, showing how Rich’s discovery of Marx’s humanism affected her poetry. In doing so, it makes a significant intervention into debates about the direction of American poetics and argues powerfully for a greater consciousness of political engagement through poetry.
Foreword
Chapter 1: ‘I Long Ago Moved On’: Adrienne Rich, Raya Dunayevskaya and Marxist-Humanism
Chapter 2: Marxist Humanism, Freedom and Raya Dunayevskaya
Chapter 3: Adrienne Rich “Feeling Contradictions” Nicaragua, and Your Native Land, Your Life.
Chapter 4: In Quest of America: The Dialectical Dimensions of “An Atlas of the Difficult World”
Chapter 5: Chapter Five: Suffering in the Heart of Capital: Dark Fields of the Republic
Chapter 6: American Innocence, the German ‘Guilt Question” and the Oslo Peace Process.
Chapter 7: The End of History and the Forgotten Future: Rich vs. Neoliberalism
Chapter 8: Fox: “Terza Rima” and the End of History
Chapter 9: Salvaging Midnight Salvage
Chapter 10: Telephone Ringing in the Labyrinth: “Draft #2006” An American Jeremiad
Chapter 11: 9/11 and The School Among the Ruins: “Tendril”
Chapter 12: Rich in the Borderlands: Late Style and Her World of Pain
Bibliography
Historicizing Modernism challenges traditional literary interpretations by taking an empirical approach to modernist writing: a direct response to new documentary sources made available over the last decade.
Informed by archival research, and working beyond the usual European/American avant-garde 1900-1945 parameters the series reassesses established images of modernist writers by developing fresh views of intellectual backgrounds and working methods.
Series Editors: Matthew Feldman and Erik Tonning
Associate Editor: Natasha Periyan, Lecturer in Literature, King’s College London, UK
Editorial Board:
Professor Chris Ackerley, Department of English, University of Otago, New Zealand;
Professor Ron Bush, St. John’s College, University of Oxford, UK;
Dr Finn Fordham, Department of English, Royal Holloway, UK;
Professor Steven Matthews, Department of English, University of Reading, UK;
Dr Mark Nixon, Department of English, University of Reading, UK;
Professor Janet Wilson, University of Northampton, UK;
Santanu Das, University of Oxford, UK;
Nan Zhang, The University of Hong Kong;
Kevin Andrew Riordan, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore