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Introduction - The Fetters of Verse

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  08 October 2021

Andrea Brady
Affiliation:
Queen Mary University of London
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Summary

Since antiquity, poets have described their experience of versification as one of constraint. The introduction examines examples of this trope, and introduces the book’s central claim: that voluntary submission to formal constraints effaces the poetries and experiences of those who are actually in bondage. It discusses the way poets and critics have aligned the imposition or radical overthrow of formal constraints with conservative or revolutionary politics, and offers some working definitions of lyric. Close readings of a sonnet by Keats, and a discussion of J. S. Mill’s essay ‘What is Poetry’, establish the book’s historicist perspective on the ‘liberal lyric’ in relation to the histories of slavery. The introduction also explains the methodology, and situates my own critical practice in relation to whiteness as a kind of enclosure.

Type
Chapter
Information
Poetry and Bondage
A History and Theory of Lyric Constraint
, pp. 1 - 28
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2021

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  • The Fetters of Verse
  • Andrea Brady, Queen Mary University of London
  • Book: Poetry and Bondage
  • Online publication: 08 October 2021
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108990684.001
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  • The Fetters of Verse
  • Andrea Brady, Queen Mary University of London
  • Book: Poetry and Bondage
  • Online publication: 08 October 2021
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108990684.001
Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

  • The Fetters of Verse
  • Andrea Brady, Queen Mary University of London
  • Book: Poetry and Bondage
  • Online publication: 08 October 2021
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108990684.001
Available formats
×