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UK-Förderung (23.542 £): The Poetics of the American Suburbs Ukri15.09.2010 Forschung und Innovation im Vereinigten Königreich, Großbritannien
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The Poetics of the American Suburbs
| Zusammenfassung | The Poetics of the American Suburbs offers the first scholarly evaluation of the poetry that emerged from, and reflected on, the post-Second World War American suburbs. It takes the work of a number of American writers (including Phyllis McGinley, John Updike, Sylvia Plath and Anne Sexton) and by a combination of close comparative readings and careful contextualisation provides an account of poetry's role in the construction and dissemination of suburban identity. At this time, the suburbs simultaneously represented the locus of the still-resonant American Dream and the site where the ideological crises of the nation - caught in Cold War McCarthyist paralysis - came to a head. It was in the suburbs that anxieties about gender, race, religion, privacy and nation were played out. This research will explore poetry's part in these debates and examine the place of poetry in a culture which displayed anxiety about what it termed the 'problem' of the suburbs. It will also enquire about the relationship between the poetry of the suburbs and broader traditions of modern American writing. By identifying and critiquing a body of work by suburban poets, might we arrive at a new understanding both of the nature of the suburbs and of the received history of twentieth-century poetry? \n\nAlthough primarily a literary study, The Poetics of the American Suburbs will draw on the insights of other fields including cultural and gender studies, architecture, sociology and medicine, as appropriate. The primary historical focus of the book is 1945 (the end of the Second World War) to 1974 (post-Vietnam, Nixon's resignation and the year of Anne Sexton's death) although occasional reference will be made to events before and after these dates. The first phase of the research (and the first chapter of the book which will form one of its outcomes) will offer a cultural history of the modern suburb. It will assess the role played by a range of contradictory discourses (including discourses of gender, nation, family, privacy, and modernity) in the construction of a distinctive and dominant suburban ideal. It will move on to examine the emergence and reception of a body of suburban poetry during this period. By close scrutiny of archival and other resources (including periodicals such as the New Yorker and the Ladies' Home Journal which frequently published writing from and about the suburbs) this research will trace the dynamics of cultural production and exchange in post-war America. \n\nThereafter, the research will take the work of a number of suburban poets in turn. In each case, it will offer a close reading of their poetry, its context and its reception, in order to arrive at a full understanding of the diverse and changing nature of suburban experience. In the case of McGinley, the research will evaluate her apparently celebratory suburban poetry, and her openly anti-feminist position. In Updike's case, the research argues for a close reading of the subtleties of his hitherto overlooked poetry, and for a careful evaluation of its insights in relation to changing post-war and Cold-War attitudes. My approach to Plath and Sexton's poetry will emphasise their evocation of a dystopian vision of the suburban ideal and the impact of their cultural mobility on their poetry. \nDrawing on the detailed readings outlined above, the closing phase of the research will proffer a critical analysis of what I call the 'poetics of the suburbs'. What are the characteristic forms, techniques and idioms of a suburban poetics? How do they relate to changing cultural conditions at this time? How are these forms influenced by developments in other contemporary literary fields (in the work of the Confessional poets, for example)? Finally, the research will look at the work of a range of current poets and ask what the longer term implications are - for suburban and literary studies alike - of poetry's particular perspective. |
| Kategorie | Research Grant |
| Referenz | AH/H005226/1 |
| Status | Closed |
| Laufzeit von | 15.09.2010 |
| Laufzeit bis | 14.01.2011 |
| Fördersumme | 23.542,00 £ |
| Quelle | https://gtr.ukri.org/projects?ref=AH%2FH005226%2F1 |
Beteiligte Organisationen
| UNIVERSITY OF EXETER |
Die Bekanntmachung bezieht sich auf einen vergangenen Zeitpunkt, und spiegelt nicht notwendigerweise den heutigen Stand wider. Der aktuelle Stand wird auf folgender Seite wiedergegeben: University OF Exeter, Exeter, Großbritannien.
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