Forces in Modern and Postmodern Poetry examines the works of classic authors in the modern and postmodern literary tradition, including Stéphane Mallarmé, Wallace Stevens, Samuel Beckett, Gertrude Stein, Charles Olson, Paul Celan, Ezra Pound, William Carlos Williams, Louis Zukofsky, and John Ashbery, all from a comparative perspective. The concepts, modern and postmodern, are not used to provide definitive answers but to raise questions concerning the status of representation, issues of the self, and the use of imagery and musical invention. The wide range of the study is matched by the richly detailed analysis of specific poetic texts from an author noted for the scope and acuity of his attention to modern poetry in all its varied forms. Forces in Modern and Postmodern Poetry examines the works of classic authors in the modern and postmodern literary tradition, including Stéphane Mallarmé, Wallace Stevens, Samuel Beckett, Gertrude Stein, Charles Olson, Paul Celan, Ezra Pound, William Carlos Williams, Louis Zukofsky, and John Ashbery, all from a comparative perspective. The concepts, modern and postmodern, are not used to provide definitive answers but to raise questions concerning the status of representation, issues of the self, and the use of imagery and musical invention. The wide range of the study is matched by the richly detailed analysis of specific poetic texts from an author noted for the scope and acuity of his attention to modern poetry in all its varied forms. Preface ix Acknowledgments xi I. Minimalism, Silence, and the Representation of Passion and Power: Beckett in Context 1 II. Some Notes on Gertrude Stein and Deixis 11 III. After Olson and Celan: The Breadth and Twist of the Referent 21 IV. Projections of Measure: The Continued Synergies of Pound and Williams 41 V. New Musics in Poetry: The Senses of Sound 63 VI. Metrical Inventions: Zukofsky and Merwin 89 VII. Some Thoughts on the Literary Representation of the Self 103 VIII. A Depth of Images 123 IX. The Prolonged Preoccupation with Image: Yeats, Pound, Eliot 133 X. " endre, simplifier le monde": The Philosophical Purchase of Mallarm TD> 149 XI. The French Mutations of Wallace Stevens 177 XII. The Strength of Ashbery: Disjunction, Nostalgia, and Narrative 199 XIII. Disjunctions and Fusions in Modern Literature and Art 213 Notes 219