American Poetic Materialism from Whitman to StevensIn American Poetic Materialism from Whitman to Stevens, Mark Noble examines writers who rethink the human in material terms. Do our experiences correlate to our material elements? Do visions of a common physical ground imply a common purpose? Noble proposes new readings of Walt Whitman, Ralph Waldo Emerson, William James, George Santayana and Wallace Stevens that explore a literary history wrestling with the consequences of its own materialism. At a moment when several new models of the relationship between human experience and its physical ground circulate among critical theorists and philosophers of science, this book turns to poets who have long asked what our shared materiality can tell us about our prospects for new models of our material selves. |
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Adorno animal faith aporetic materialism argues assertion atom atomist attempt Badiou body Bohr calls central claims commensurability concept D’Alembert Deleuze Deleuze’s demonstrates describe Diderot discussion Emerson ence envisions epistemological erotic essay ethical fact Faraday Faraday’s Felix Guattari figure finitude Gay Wilson Allen George Santayana Gilles Deleuze Greenblatt Heisenberg human experience ical idea idealism imagination immanent insists instance Leaves of Grass lines of force locate logic Lucretian Lucretius material ground material subject material world materialist matter means mechanics Mettrie Michael Faraday mind models modern moments Natural History object once one’s ontology paradox passage person philosophical physical world poem’s poet poet’s poetic poetry possible principle quantum radical Ralph Waldo Emerson reading reality recognize relation requires rerum natura rock Santayana seems sensation sense soul speaker Stevens’s sublime substance suggests Sun-Down Poem theory things thinking tion transcendence University Press vision Wallace Stevens Walt Whitman Whitehead Whitman words