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Introduction: The Case for Comparison

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Space, Place and Poetry in English and German, 1960–1975

Part of the book series: Geocriticism and Spatial Literary Studies ((GSLS))

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Abstract

Space, Place and Poetry in English and German 1960–1975 proposes that the impact of transnational spatial revolutions on twentieth-century poetry can only be fully grasped with recourse to comparative methodologies which look across national borders. It focuses on the period 1960–75, a key transitional phase between modernity and postmodernity and one which saw drastic changes in perceptions and experiences of space across both language areas. Examinations of representations of space and place in the poetry of this period have been frustratingly monolingual; Thomas argues current research has not yet fully exploited the potential of a space and place oriented approach to poetry of the 1960s and early 1970s, and that to do so requires a fundamentally comparative critical paradigm, exemplified here with reference to a range of Anglophone and German-language poets.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    OED Online, s.v. ‘space, n.1’, accessed 28 December 2017, http://www.oed.com/view/Entry/185414.

  2. 2.

    Historians have debated whether decolonisation should be viewed as an ongoing process occurring between the early twentieth century and the present day, or as the ‘virtually simultaneous collapse of all the European empires’ between c.1945 and the mid-1960s (Darwin 1999, 544).

  3. 3.

    On the English Intelligencer, see Latter (2015); and Pattison et al. (2012).

  4. 4.

    Kristin Ross and Thomas F. McDonough have pointed out the flaws in Soja’s assertion, on the basis that the notion of socially constructed space pre-dates Lefebvre’s work (McDonough 1994; Ross 2008).

  5. 5.

    Many, including Tyrus Miller (in relation to fiction) and C. D. Blanton (when examining poetry) view the interwar years as being of critical importance (Miller 1999; Blanton 2015). Jed Esty and Thomas S. Davies, on the other hand, include the post-war era in their (in other respects quite different) overviews of the period of modernism’s ‘decline’—though, again, largely with reference to prose fiction (Esty 2004; Davies 2015). As described in note 6, below, Anthony Mellors’ canon of ‘late modernist’ writers includes Prynne, who is still actively publishing (Mellors 2005b).

  6. 6.

    For example, Olsen names Prynne as a key figure in her discussion of the origins of postmodern poetry in Britain; yet Prynne is also a major figure in Mellors’ discussion of late modernism (Olsen 2007, 44; Mellors 2005b).

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  1. St Hilda’s College, University of Oxford, Oxford, UK

    Nicola Thomas

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Thomas, N. (2018). Introduction: The Case for Comparison. In: Space, Place and Poetry in English and German, 1960–1975. Geocriticism and Spatial Literary Studies. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-90212-8_1

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