Modern Poetry and the Idea of Language

by Gerald L. Bruns

-- Gerald Bruns's ground-breaking analysis compares two contrasting functions of language: the hermetic, where language is self-contained and self-referencing, and the Orphic, which originates from a belief in the mythical unity of word and being. Bruns lucidly depicts the distinctions and convergences between these two lines of thought by examining the works of Mallarme, Flaubert, Joyce, Beckett, and others.

Genres: Poetry

300 pages, Paperback

Published April 27, 2001

About the author

Gerald L. Bruns is the William P. and Hazel B. White Professor Emeritus of English at the University of Notre Dame. His previous books include The Material of Poetry: Sketches for a Philosophical Poetics, and What Are Poets For? An Anthropology of Contemporary Poetry and Poetics.

Reviews

[isaac smith]

The theory homies say orphic/hermetic from bruns is semiotic/symbolic from kristeva but in a different register. I probably will not finish this, but who knows?