Glossator: Practice and Theory of the Commentary: On the Poems of J.H. Prynne

by Ryan Dobran, Josh Stanley, Thomas Roebuck

Volume 2 of the journal Practice and Theory of the Commentary. On the Poems of J.H. Prynne. Edited by Ryan Dobran. RYAN DOBRAN, Introduction JOSH STANLEY, Back On Into The Way "Charm Against Too Many Apples" [The White Stones, 1969]; THOMAS ROEBUCK & MATTHEW SPERLING, "The Glacial Question, Unsolved": A Specimen Commentary on Lines 1-31 [The White Stones, 1969] ROBIN PURVES, A Commentary on J.H. Prynne's "Thoughts on the Esterházy Court Uniform" [The White Stones, 1969] REITHA PATTISON, J.H. Prynne's "The Corn Burned by Syrius" [The White Stones, 1969] KESTON SUTHERLAND, Hilarious absolute daybreak [Brass, 1971] MICHAEL STONE-RICHARDS, The time of the subject in the neurological field (I): A Commentary on J.H. Prynne's "Again in the Black Cloud" [Wound Response, 1974] JUSTIN KATKO, Relativistic Towards a Commentary on "The Plant Time Manifold Transcripts" [Wound Response, 1974] JOHN WILKINSON, Heigh A Partial Gloss of Word Order [Word Order, 1989] Glossator publishes original commentaries, editions and translations of commentaries, and essays and articles relating to the theory and history of commentary, glossing, and marginalia. The journal aims to encourage the practice of commentary as a creative form of intellectual work and to provide a forum for dialogue and reflection on the past, present, and future of this ancient genre of writing. By aligning itself, not with any particular discipline, but with a particular mode of production, Glossator gives expression to the fact that praxis founds theory. GLOSSATOR.ORG

334 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2010

Reviews

[Christopher · Rating 3 out of 5]

A collection of eight papers each shedding light on a particular poem (and often the collection the poem appears in, in general) by J.H. Prynne, a poet notorious for his references to obscure literature and definitely calling out for commentary. The contributions here focus mainly on Prynne’s work of the late 1960s and the 1970s; the last paper treats his 1989 collection Word Order.

This book will prove very helpful to readers of Prynne. Who would have guessed that the “ecstasy” in Prynne’s title “L’extase de M. Poher” is actually a term of art from an anthropologist’s work on shamanism? However, most of the authors write in turgid, long-winded academese nearly as challenging as Prynne’s poetry but with little of the fun.