Fictions of Form in American Poetry

(Paperback)

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In the 1830s Alexis de Tocqueville prophesied that American writers would slight, even despise, form--that they would favor the sensational over rational order. He suggested that this attitude was linked to a distinct concept of democracy in America. Exposing the inaccuracies of such claims when applied to poetry, Stephen Cushman maintains that Ame

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"Cushman's position is that major American poets have probably overvalued the formal and perhaps fallaciously have believed that the formal aspects of their poetry reflect deep-seated views of Americanness. The book is vital, new, offering the changing poetic view of America from 1855 to the present."--Choice