![]() ![]() Others that form suppressed political freedom. Some asserted that narrative muzzled personal expression. Expansive Poetry also included a revival of the opera libretto, such as Gioia’s Nosferatu (2001), and verse drama, such as Disch’s The Cardinal Detoxes (1993).Įarly critics of Expansive Poetry were caught up in the “Poetry Wars” of the late twentieth century, which pitted “open,” “naked,” or “organic” free-verse poets against those writing in meter, rhyme, and narrative. Many of these critics mistakenly regarded these aspects of poetry as antiquated. This movement sought to restore the historical distinction between the three major poetic genres: narrative poetry, which tells a story dramatic poetry, which is written to be performed by actors on a stage and lyric poetry, which functions as a kind of song, confession, cry, appeal, or prayer. Unlike modernists, Expansive poets made a clear distinction between narrative poems, which could be written in any form and at any length, and lyric poems, which were typically brief and song-like. Expansive poets wrote narratives in meter and rhyme, meter alone (usually blank verse), and in tightly controlled free verse. Since modernism, the dividing line between lyric and narrative had tended to blur. Expansive poets defined narrative as the linguistic or verbal presentation of a sequence of fictionalized, non-autobiographical events (plot) concerning recognizable characters (protagonists), whether imagined or historical, who faced conflicts that must be contended with, overcome, or somehow resolved. Gwynn succinctly states in his introduction to New Expansive Poetry (1999), these poets desired “formal elements that can be heard and narrative qualities that can be understood.” These poets advocated for stylistic accessibility, narrative engagement, enlargement of thematic concerns beyond those of the poet’s own experience, and a revitalization of received forms such as the sonnet, villanelle, sestina, sapphics, blank verse, and ballad stanzas. Eliot, early “Expansives” such as Dick Allen, Tom Disch, Frederick Feirstein, Dana Gioia, Mark Jarman, Timothy Steele, and Frederick Turner sought a more prominent place for poetry in American culture. ![]() Weary also of the lyric fragmentation of high modernists like Ezra Pound and T. Like the Language poets of the same cultural moment, Expansive poets began to distrust the looseness and egotism of the Beat generation’s barbaric yawps, the murky shamanism of the deep imagists, and the limitations of the confessional “I.” First used by Wade Newman in his essay “Crossing the Boundary: The Expansive Movement in American Poetry” (1988), the term signaled the dissatisfaction of its practitioners with the poetic zeitgeist of the 1970s, the period during which most first-wave Expansive poets came of age. The term “Expansive” refers to the broadening of poetic forms (meter and rhyme) and modes (narrative, satire, fable) practiced by New Formalist and New Narrative poets, as well as the wider audience these poets hoped to reach. The movement was then renamed to reflect this narrative impulse. Many poets within New Formalism, however, insisted that narrative was also an integral part of their agenda. Applauded by some and attacked by others for its use of form, New Formalism reacted against the dominant practices of autobiographical free verse. It was widely discussed among poets, critics, and the literary public for whom modern poetry had come to seem either too narrow in its scope or too inscrutable in its style. New Formalism, which emerged first, involved the revival of meter and rhyme. Expansive Poetry was an American literary movement of the 1980s that combined New Narrative and New Formalism. A general overview should help clarify matters. Critics have tended to muddle the complicated issues associated with Expansive Poetry. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |