Yesterday, I shared info on a GMU professor’s website and book, “Plerosis/Kenosis,” and I did get a bit snarky, but it wasn’t mean-spirited snark. No, it was more mischievous than malicious in tone – so expect a bit more of that today as I finish up my discussion. The site is HERE.
When last we met, I discussed how the highbrow and haughty title of the book was a bit off-putting. However, I ended with a reviewer’s palliating appeal, “Do not be put off by the title,” and that “the book is neither jargon-laden nor forbidding. Written for a general as well as an informed audience….”
And get this, the review ends with this intriguing statement: “The sections on Emily Dickinson seem especially acute.”
You know that caught my attention. Perhaps I’ve been too snarky about all of this?
Let’s move on.
There is also a review of Dr. Nanian’s book on his website, written by Eugene Stelzig, Distinguished Teaching Professor English, SUNY Geneseo, and it too is a bit highbrow/academic for my taste.
This review opens with this:
“Richard A. Nanian’s study of poetic language and its energies is an original and bold attempt to conceptualize both the anatomy and history of modern poetry that has the philosophical sweep, critical sophistication, and elegant clarity of a Northrop Frye or a Kenneth Burke.”
I’ll admit, I don’t know who Northrop Frye or Kenneth Burke are, but I’ll be sure to Google-search them later (I did; more on them on a later date).
The review continues:
“Dr. Nanian’s rejection of the ‘artifactual’ model of the poetic text for a dynamic one of its language acting upon the reader, coupled with his core premise of the two opposing directions of poetry culminating in the experience of the sublime at the limits of language, makes for a revisionary mapping of the landscape of Anglo-American poetry from the Romantics to the Modernists.”
Yesterday, to impart more whimsy than snapishness into my post, I shared a bit of dialogue from an episode of “Frasier” to make a point, so today I return to more dialogue from that program to make another.
In the first episode of season three, Frasier meets the radio station’s new boss, Kate Costas, played with comic perfection by Mercedes Ruehl. Here’s the bit of dialogue:
Kate: I've been listening to the tapes of all your shows. I love what you're doing.
Frasier: Really? Well, thank you very much! I like to think of my show as a haven for the tempest-tossed in the maelstrom of everyday life.
Kate: Wow. You really talk that way.
Now, let’s get back to that last statement I quoted from Stelzig’s review of “Plerosis/Kenosis”: Wow. Maybe he really talks that way.
He adds later that the “readings of individual poems in support of his thesis of a shift from the plerotic Wordsworth, Coleridge, and Keats, to the kenotic Dickinson, Eliot, and Stevens are eye-opening….”
I’ll admit, for a brief second there I wondered, “what in the world do ‘plerotic’ and ‘kenotic’ mean?” – but then I realized that they are just the adjective forms for “plerosis” and “kenosis.”
Stelzig concludes his comments with, “This thoughtful, ambitious, and lucidly written study of the nature and language of poetry deserves a wide audience.”
Maybe so.
I’m going to be honest – after reading from the Amazon review (“The sections on Emily Dickinson seem especially acute”), Nanian’s statement, that readers “will find their understanding of poetry not only increased but indeed transformed,” and Stelzig’s final statement, I thought, “Okay, I’m game. I’m going to give this book a try” – and I clicked on Amazon.com to order a copy.
Are you ready for this?
The book costs 94.09, discounted from 98.65.
Needless to say, I did not make the purchase.
To say the least, I was stunned; but this brief encounter in my day – clicking on a site to purchase a book – reminded me of the insidious practices and rapacity within the textbook industry. It’s appalling. However, my daily posts are related to Dickinson, not the reprehensible practices of the publishing industry, so I’ll leave that topic for others to research, report and reflect on.
I’ll just say that had it not been for such greediness, I would have ordered the book.
I’ll close by paraphrasing a stanza from the only poem by Dickinson in which she used the word “greed”:
Not in malignity
Mentioned I this to thee –
Had they sincerity
Soonest to share
But for the Greed of them –
Boosting each Premium –
Basking in Proceeds
Or I’d be there –
When last we met, I discussed how the highbrow and haughty title of the book was a bit off-putting. However, I ended with a reviewer’s palliating appeal, “Do not be put off by the title,” and that “the book is neither jargon-laden nor forbidding. Written for a general as well as an informed audience….”
And get this, the review ends with this intriguing statement: “The sections on Emily Dickinson seem especially acute.”
You know that caught my attention. Perhaps I’ve been too snarky about all of this?
Let’s move on.
There is also a review of Dr. Nanian’s book on his website, written by Eugene Stelzig, Distinguished Teaching Professor English, SUNY Geneseo, and it too is a bit highbrow/academic for my taste.
This review opens with this:
“Richard A. Nanian’s study of poetic language and its energies is an original and bold attempt to conceptualize both the anatomy and history of modern poetry that has the philosophical sweep, critical sophistication, and elegant clarity of a Northrop Frye or a Kenneth Burke.”
I’ll admit, I don’t know who Northrop Frye or Kenneth Burke are, but I’ll be sure to Google-search them later (I did; more on them on a later date).
The review continues:
“Dr. Nanian’s rejection of the ‘artifactual’ model of the poetic text for a dynamic one of its language acting upon the reader, coupled with his core premise of the two opposing directions of poetry culminating in the experience of the sublime at the limits of language, makes for a revisionary mapping of the landscape of Anglo-American poetry from the Romantics to the Modernists.”
Yesterday, to impart more whimsy than snapishness into my post, I shared a bit of dialogue from an episode of “Frasier” to make a point, so today I return to more dialogue from that program to make another.
In the first episode of season three, Frasier meets the radio station’s new boss, Kate Costas, played with comic perfection by Mercedes Ruehl. Here’s the bit of dialogue:
Kate: I've been listening to the tapes of all your shows. I love what you're doing.
Frasier: Really? Well, thank you very much! I like to think of my show as a haven for the tempest-tossed in the maelstrom of everyday life.
Kate: Wow. You really talk that way.
Now, let’s get back to that last statement I quoted from Stelzig’s review of “Plerosis/Kenosis”: Wow. Maybe he really talks that way.
He adds later that the “readings of individual poems in support of his thesis of a shift from the plerotic Wordsworth, Coleridge, and Keats, to the kenotic Dickinson, Eliot, and Stevens are eye-opening….”
I’ll admit, for a brief second there I wondered, “what in the world do ‘plerotic’ and ‘kenotic’ mean?” – but then I realized that they are just the adjective forms for “plerosis” and “kenosis.”
Stelzig concludes his comments with, “This thoughtful, ambitious, and lucidly written study of the nature and language of poetry deserves a wide audience.”
Maybe so.
I’m going to be honest – after reading from the Amazon review (“The sections on Emily Dickinson seem especially acute”), Nanian’s statement, that readers “will find their understanding of poetry not only increased but indeed transformed,” and Stelzig’s final statement, I thought, “Okay, I’m game. I’m going to give this book a try” – and I clicked on Amazon.com to order a copy.
Are you ready for this?
The book costs 94.09, discounted from 98.65.
Needless to say, I did not make the purchase.
To say the least, I was stunned; but this brief encounter in my day – clicking on a site to purchase a book – reminded me of the insidious practices and rapacity within the textbook industry. It’s appalling. However, my daily posts are related to Dickinson, not the reprehensible practices of the publishing industry, so I’ll leave that topic for others to research, report and reflect on.
I’ll just say that had it not been for such greediness, I would have ordered the book.
I’ll close by paraphrasing a stanza from the only poem by Dickinson in which she used the word “greed”:
Not in malignity
Mentioned I this to thee –
Had they sincerity
Soonest to share
But for the Greed of them –
Boosting each Premium –
Basking in Proceeds
Or I’d be there –
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