Duquesne University Duquesne Scholarship Collection Electronic Theses and Dissertations Spring 1-1-2006 Lyric Subjectivity, Ethics, Contemporary Poetics: Claudia Rankine, Fanny Howe, Elizabeth Robinson Maureen Gallagher Follow this and additional works at: https://dsc.duq.edu/etd Recommended Citation Gallagher, M. (2006). Lyric Subjectivity, Ethics, Contemporary Poetics: Claudia Rankine, Fanny Howe, Elizabeth Robinson (Doctoral dissertation, Duquesne University). Retrieved from https://dsc.duq.edu/etd/77 This Worldwide Access is brought to you for free and open access by Duquesne Scholarship Collection. It has been accepted for inclusion in Electronic Theses and Dissertations by an authorized administrator of Duquesne Scholarship Collection. For more information, please contact [email protected]. LYRIC SUBJECTIVITY, ETHICS, CONTEMPORARY POETICS: CLAUDIA RANKINE, FANNY HOWE, ELIZABETH ROBINSON A Dissertation Presented to the McAnulty Graduate School of Liberal Arts Duquesne University In partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy By Maureen Gallagher December 2015 Copyright by Maureen Gallagher 2015 LYRIC SUBJECTIVITY, ETHICS, CONTEMPORARY POETICS: CLAUDIA RANKINE, FANNY HOWE, ELIZABETH ROBINSON By Maureen Gallagher Approved October 27, 2015 ________________________________ ________________________________ Dr. Linda Kinnahan Dr. Faith Barrett Professor of English Associate Professor of English (Committee Chair) (Committee Member) ________________________________ Dr. Laura Engel Associate Professor of English (Committee Member) ________________________________ ________________________________ Dr. James Swindal Dr. Greg Barnhisel Dean, McAnulty Graduate School of Chair, English Department Liberal Arts Professor of English Professor of Philosophy iii ABSTRACT LYRIC SUBJECTIVITY, ETHICS, CONTEMPORARY POETICS: CLAUDIA RANKINE, FANNY HOWE, ELIZABETH ROBINSON By Maureen Gallagher December 2015 Dissertation supervised by Dr. Linda Kinnahan This dissertation investigates ethics and lyric subjectivity in the writings of three American women poets. I consider select poems and poetics of Claudia Rankine, Fanny Howe, and Elizabeth Robinson, in order to argue that their postlanguage lyric poetry retains lyric subjectivity and reformulates it as ethical insofar as it is “circumspective” or “other-oriented”; that is, the lyric “I” is depicted as constituted through its relations with alterity. I apply contemporary literary-ethical methodology, notably the ethical philosophy of Emmanuel Levinas, the poetics of Paul Celan, the hauntology of Jacques Derrida, and the poethics of Joan Retallack, in order to demonstrate how these poets retain and revise the lyric. All three poets register the lyric subject’s interiority and exteriority, use extensive intertextuality, and deploy self-reflexivity. Furthermore, I examine the ethics of reading and writing poetry, and suggest that these poets deploy what I term the Levinasian-Celanian model of postlanguage lyric poetry, iv wherein the poetic text is conceptualized as a site of ethical encounter between writer and reader. Rankine, Howe, and Robinson present a range of explorations of a lyric “I” that acknowledges alterity within subjectivity. Rankine critiques what she depicts as the deadening mythology of autonomous subjectivity in American culture and language. She uses the textual strategies of fragmentation, interruption, and juxtaposition to demonstrate the subject as both violable and capable of revitalization through ethical encounter within the lyric. Howe, a Catholic poet, puts the traditions of Romantic and Objectivist poetry in conversation and draws on liberation theology adds both a spiritual and politically committed dimension to the Levinasian-Celanian model of lyric encounter. Howe uses serial/spiral poetic form to underscore subjectivity as wandering, dynamic, and constituting “being-in-the-world” for the Other. Robinson draws on supernatural tropes, including the doppelgänger and the ghost, to underscore the distortions of lyric reflections of the self and the otherness inherent in self-encounter. Further, Robinson’s conceptualizations of lyric voice and lyric address are Levinasian in their potential for ethical encounter between reader and poet, but she modifies this model with a Derridean emphasis on the persistence of difference and distance between the lyric “I” and the lyric “you.” v DEDICATION To my family, particularly my husband, Laurence, my mother, Patricia, and my daughters, Molly and Jane. vi ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I would like to begin by expressing my appreciation to my committee, Linda Kinnahan, Faith Barrett, and Laura Engel, whose feedback, recommendations, flexibility, and kindness have been instrumental during this process. I particularly appreciate Laura Engel’s supportive enthusiasm for my work, wherever it was leading, and Faith Barrett’s willingness to join my committee, “sight unseen,” that is, before she had even met me or started teaching at Duquesne. I must make a special note of gratitude for my dissertation director, Linda Kinnahan, whose great generosity of spirit has made this project possible: she has on many occasions shared with me not only scholarly expertise and professional opportunities, but also her space, her time, and her friendship. Moreover, Linda’s generous readings of an expansive range of writings have modeled for me a kind of intellectual openness that I can only hope to emulate. I’d also like to thank the Duquesne English Department, which has been a truly supportive community. Many faculty members have provided me with intellectual guidance and professional mentorship through coursework, assistantships, and doctoral exams, including Greg Barnhisel, Laura Callanan, Tom Kinnahan, Magali Michael, James Purdy, Judy Suh, Dan Watkins, and, in the Philosophy Department, Lanei Rodemeyer. Also, I have been privileged to work on my doctorate in the company of many supportive peers. In particular, I would like to thank Marianne Holohan, Mary Parish, and Emily Rutter for countless intellectual exchanges and words of encouragement. Finally, I’d like to thank my family, particularly my husband Laurence, who has been a daily and unwavering source of support during this long process. I’d also like to thank my mother, Patricia, who for years encouraged me to go to graduate school, where she knew I vii belonged. Finally, I’d like to acknowledge my daughters, Molly and Jane, whose entry into my life has coincided with my work on this dissertation. Every day, they fill our lives with moments of wonder. viii TABLE OF CONTENTS Abstract ............................................................................................................................. iv Dedication ......................................................................................................................... vi Acknowledgements .......................................................................................................... vii INTRODUCTION ..............................................................................................................1 “Two Camps”.......................................................................................................................2 Contemporary Women’s Poetry and the Lyric “I” ..............................................................4 Ethical Lyric Subjectivity ....................................................................................................6 Literary-Ethical Methodology .............................................................................................7 Ethics and Politics in Literary Criticism ..............................................................................9 Literary-Ethical Inquiry and Modern Poetry .....................................................................12 Gender, Ethics and Postlanguage Lyric Poetry..................................................................14 Overview of the Chapters ..................................................................................................17 CHAPTER ONE: THEORETICAL AND LITERARY CONTEXTS: CONTEMPORARY SUBJECTIVITY, WHERE LYRIC MEETS LANGUAGE, AND THE ETHICS OF POETIC ENCOUNTER .............................................................22 Conceptualizing Subjectivity .............................................................................................23 Definitions of Lyric............................................................................................................27 Romantic Lyric Poetry and Subjectivity ............................................................................31 The Language School Critique ..........................................................................................35 The Lyric “I” in Contemporary Women’s Poetry..............................................................38 Subjectivity in Language Writing: Lyn Hejinian’s My Life ..............................................40 ix After Language: Lyric in the Turn of the Twenty-First Century .......................................47 Contemporary American Poetry and the Discourse of Hybridity ......................................53 The Ethics of Levinas and Derrida ....................................................................................58 Poethics: Contemporary Poetry and Ethics ........................................................................62 Ethics, Encounter, and Address in Literature and Lyric ....................................................67