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CONCRETE POETRY Stead Relied on Theories of Allegory Or, in the Case 1920S Through the 1940S, Epitomized in E E Cum­ of Dr

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CONCRETE POETRY Stead Relied on Theories of Allegory Or, in the Case 1920S Through the 1940S, Epitomized in E E Cum­ of Dr CONCRETE POETRY stead relied on theories of allegory or, in the case 1920s through the 1940s, epitomized in e e cum­ of Dr. Johnson, moral exemplum, both of which mings' "I (a." The term "c. p." was adopted in 1955 explain poetic images as symbolic of a. ideas (see when the Swiss poet Eugen Gomringer (b. 1924) ALLEGORY) . Romantic critics (e.g. F. Schlegel, met Decio Pignatari (b. 1927), who had founded, Blake), in rebellion against this dichotomy of text with his fellow Brazilians Augusto and Haroldo de and meaning, less apologized for the c. images of Campos (b. 1931 and 1929), the Noigandres poetry than attacked abstractions as by definition Group (see SWISS POETRY; BRAZILIAN POETRY) . false. Romantic historians of lit., like Coleridge The term was adapted from the Swiss sculptor (Biographia Literaria, ch. 1), used the terms c. and Max Bill (b. 1908), who called some of his works a. to distinguish between the neoclassical verse konkretionen and whose secretary Gomringer was at they disliked (e.g. Pope: "Hope springs eternal in that time; however, it had already been used inde­ the human breast: I Man never is, but always to p'endently in 1953 by the Swedish poet and artist be blest") and the poetry they wrote themselves Oyvind Fahlstrom to describe his own visual po­ (Coleridge: "I would build that dome in air, I That ems, which are unlike those of the later group. sunny dome! those caves of ice!"). The critique of The main manifesto of the Noigandres group, theoretical lang. was developed further by "Pilot Plan for C. P. " (1958), is reprinted in Solt imagists (see IMAGISM) and other modernists who (1968) and may be taken as describing the early turned the distinction against romanticism, and concrete program. esp. against Wordsworth, whom Pound and the Over the next four years the group expandedto early Eliot found a. and discursive. The early mod­ include such Germans as Claus Bremer, Dieter ernists' contempt for "ideas" and for discursive Roth, and Franz Mon, the Swiss Daniel Spoerri, poetry became in the work of the New Criticism the Austrians Gerhard Riihm and ErnstJandl, the (q.v.) a systematic and a. hermeneutics: Wimsatt Scot Ian Hamilton Finlay, and the expatriate Am . and Ransom carried on a belated and ambivalent Emmett Williams. By the middle 1960s, when the debate with Kantian idealist philosophy (see CON­ largest-scale antho1s. of c. p. appeared, those ed­ CRETE UNIVERSAL) . But by the 1950s the literary ited by Williams (1967) and by Mary-Ellen Solt critique of theoretical lang. had entered into the (1969 ), the movement included several dozen mainstream of philosophy (e.g. Quine) just at the more poets in countries as various as Spain, Italy, time when crit. itself was becoming increasingly Argentina, and Japan. By that point the rigid origi­ theoretical and a. Postmodern verse, however, may nal definition had been stretched and some de­ be c. in the extreme, avoiding (as in some "con­ gree of textual allusion and visual mimesis was crete poetry" and in "sound poetry"-qq.v.) the allowed, though with the growing fashion for c. p., use even of words as too great a concession to not everyone who called himself a "c. poet" was abstraction. Many recent poets, in America at accepted by everyone else. But the influence of least, are indebted to the example of objectivism the antho1s. and the dissemination to a larger (q.v.) and ofW. C. Williams, whose motto was "no audience encouraged many other poets who were ideas but in things." -F. Nietzsche, "The Ques­ by no means avant-garde to experiment with visual tion of Socrates," Tw ilight of the Idols (1888); O. poetry (still known as "c." in most cases). This was Barfield, Poetic Diction (1928); J. C. Ransom, The the case with such Am . poets as May Swenson, M. Wo rld's Body (1938); W. Quine, From a Logical Point L. Rosenthal, and John Hollander. Thus c. p. be­ of View (1953), ch. 2; w. K. Wimsatt, Jr., "The came not the style of a group but a possible form Substantive Level," The Verbal Icon (1954); F. Ker­ for the mainstream. The most conspicuous result mode, Romantic Image (1957); J. Weinberg, "Ab­ of this popularization was a widespread confusion straction in the Formation of Concepts," DHI; R. about the term "c. p." which has persisted to the Rorty, Consequences of Pragmatism (1982), chs. 4, 6, present day. 8; J. Milstead, '''C.' and 'A.' as Stylistic Descrip­ From the late 1960s onward, some younger vis­ tions," Lang&S 16 (1983); A. Danto, The Philo­ ual poets formed new groups, calling their works sophicalDisenfranchisement of Art (1986) ; C. Altieri, "post-c." (Cavan McCarthy), "visuelle Gedichte" Painterly Abstraction in Modernist Am. Poetry (K. P. Dencker) or, ultimately, poesia visiva (some­ (1989). J.M.P. times attributed to Luciano Ori but actually first used by Eugenio Miccini as early as19 62) ; because CONCRETE POETRY is visual poetry, esp. of the "visual poetry" (q.v.) describes the general fieldof 1950s and 1960s, in which (1) each work defines works which fuse visual and literary art, poesia its own form and is visually and, if possible, struc­ visiva is used untranslated, and has become the turally original or even unique; (2) the piece is commonest term in the Eng.-speaking world to without any major allusion to any previously exist­ describe the visual poetic forms that have devel­ ing poem; and (3) the visual shape is wherever oped since c. p. Poesia visiva typically combines possible abstract, the words or letters within it photography and graphic techniques with letters, behaving as ideograms. This dissociatesthe proto­ and these do not always make sense semantically, typical c. poem from the freer-form visual poems so that with poesia visiva one truly enters the world of futurism and dada (qq.v.) as well as from the of visual art more than lit. As for the original c. less consciously programmatic visual poetry of the poets, many ofthem turned to sound poetry (q .v.) - [ 233 ] - CONCRETE UNIVERSAL after the 1960s and today combine the media of e. of poetry is "truth, not individual and local, but and sound poetry into activities for radio, televi­ general, and operative" (Wordsworth); Shake­ sion, and cinema. See also CALLIGRAMME; LET­ speare had "the universal, which is potentially in TRISME; PATTERN POETRY; VISUAL POETRY. each particular, opened out to him" (Coleridge). R. H. Fogle, The Imagery of Keats and Shelley The recurrence of this opposition suggests that (1949), ch. 5; R. L. Beloof, "E. E. Cummings: The the concepts of "concrete" and "universal" must Prosodic Shape of His Poems," DAI 14 (1954) ; An both appear in any acceptable theory of the nature Anthol. of C. P., ed. E. Williams (1967); C. P.:A and structure of poetry. Wimsatt held that 20th-c. Wo rld View, ed. M.-E. Solt and W. Barnstone crit., esp. that of Empson, Brooks, Blackmur, and (1969); R. P. Draper, "C. P.," NLH2 (1971 ); "Kon­ Tate, had finally formulated correctly the doctrine krete Poesie I, II," Te xt & Kritik 25, 30 (1974-75); which had been adumbrated in earlier critical Theoretische Positionen zur konkreten Poesie, ed. T. writings such as those above. Kopfermann (1974); A. Marcus, "Intro. to the Wimsatt classified as a e. u. any natural or arti­ Visual Syntax of C. P. ," VL ang 8 (1974); H. Har­ ficial object which exhibits "organized heteroge­ tung, Experimentelle Literatur und konkrete Poesie neity" of a complexity sufficiently greatto make it (1975); L. Gumpel, "C. " P. from East and We st seem "in the highest degree individual." The cri­ Germany (1976)-conflates terms; A. and H. de teria for determining whether or not an object is Campos and D. Pignatari, Te oria da poesia concreta a c. u. are diversity of parts, interrelatedness of (1975);]. L. McHughes, "The Poesis of Space," parts, completeness, unity, independence, and QJS 63 (1977); Visual Lit. Crit. (1979), Am. Wr iting self-maintenance. Perhaps the chief reason for To day (1982), both ed. R. Kostelanetz; D. W. Sea­ Wimsatt's preference for "c. u." is that it provides man, C. P. in Fra nce (1981); W. Steiner, "Res po­ him with a pair of polar terms which suggest the etica," The Colors of Rhet. (1982); G. Janecek, The structure of the organic unity of the poem. He Look of Rus. Lit. (1984); Poetics of the Avant-Garde regards poetry as discourse which expresses a / C. P., Spec. Iss. of Po T 3, 3 (1982); Ver be et image: "meaning," "value," "idea," "concept," or "abstrac­ Poesie visuelle, ed. D. Higgins and K. Kempton, tion" (the u.) by means of the specific details (the Spec. Iss. of Art contemporain 5 (1983); E. Sacerio­ e.) which constitute the matter of the poem. Thus Gari, "EI despertar de la forma en la poesfa con­ the meaning is the form or unifyingprinciple; and creta," Rl50 (1984); The Ruth and Marvin Sackner the poem is an organic unity if the characters, Archive of C. and Visual P. 1984 (1986)-catalog actions, metrical devices, words, and metaphors and bibl.; K. McCullough, C. P.:AnAn not. Internat. combine to body forth this u. Furthermore, the e. Bibl. (1989); C. Bayard, The New Poetics in Canada is the only possible means for expressing the u., and Quebec (1989). D.H. which (in a good poem) is so novel, subtle, and individual that ordinary lang. cannot provide a CONCRETE UNIVERSAL. In a 1947 essay, W. K. substantive class name for it. " Wimsatt,Jr., proposed e. u." as a key concept for Thus the u.
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