Lyric Time: Dickinson and the Limits of Genre

by Sharon Cameron

Lyric Time offers a detailed critical reading of a particularly difficult poet, an analysis of the dominance of temporal structures and concerns in the body of her poetry, and finally, an important original contribution to a theory of the lyric. Poised between analysis of Emily Dickinson's poetic texts and theoretical inquiry, Lyric Time suggests that the temporal problems of Dickinson's poems are frequently exaggerations of the features that distinguish the lyric as a genre. "It is precisely the distance some of Dickinson's poems go toward the far end of coherence, precisely the outlandishness of their extremity, that allows us to see, magnified, the fine workings of more conventional lyrics," writes Sharon Cameron. Lyric Time is written for the literary audience at large—Dickinsonians, romanticists, theorists, anyone interested in American poetry, or in poetry at all, and especially anyone who admires a risky book that succeeds.

Genres: Poetry

296 pages, Paperback

First published August 1, 1979

About the author

Sharon Cameron teaches nineteenth-century American literature and twentieth-century American poetry. She received her Ph.D. at Brandeis University, and has taught at Boston University, the University of California, Santa Barbara, UCLA, and Johns Hopkins, where she has been the William R. Kenan, Jr. Professor of English since 1985. She is also a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

Reviews

[Jamey]

Another excellent book in the galaxy of books created by the thousand students of the genius Allen Grossman, who for almost four decades was the Paul Proswimmer Professor of Poetry and Poetic Structures at Brandeis University.

[Mills College Library]

811.4 C1828 1979