I begin to understand how a critic like [Ivor] Winters can argue that the brief lyric may be greater than a complete tragedy, since the lyric can hope for perfection, an unflawed wholeness and unity.
—Donald Justice, “On the Purity of Style,” Platonic Scripts (U. of Michigan Press, 1984)
Showing posts with label genre. Show all posts
Showing posts with label genre. Show all posts
small worlds
Kleinkunst in German refers to a so-called art of small forms, “little art,” in other words.
[…]
By “small forms” in literature, we generally understand various types of prose works of short length. These might include short stories, sketches, anecdotes, essays, reviews, feuilletons, and aphorisms. They were, to be sure, cultivated at a time when large novels, full-length plays, and fine poetry of every hue and stamp were being written...But the modernist upheaval in the arts beginning at the turn of the century [19 to 20th] created a climate of experimentation and innovation of far-reaching consequences for all literary creativity. Structural and linguistic transformations of conventional literary genres, from novel to poem, was also accompanied by a spurning of these genres by writers who were attracted to, and sought to make their niche in, the emerging world of literary small forms.
The Vienna Coffeehouse Wits, 1890-1938 (Purdue U. Press, 1993) by Harold B. Segel
[…]
By “small forms” in literature, we generally understand various types of prose works of short length. These might include short stories, sketches, anecdotes, essays, reviews, feuilletons, and aphorisms. They were, to be sure, cultivated at a time when large novels, full-length plays, and fine poetry of every hue and stamp were being written...But the modernist upheaval in the arts beginning at the turn of the century [19 to 20th] created a climate of experimentation and innovation of far-reaching consequences for all literary creativity. Structural and linguistic transformations of conventional literary genres, from novel to poem, was also accompanied by a spurning of these genres by writers who were attracted to, and sought to make their niche in, the emerging world of literary small forms.
The Vienna Coffeehouse Wits, 1890-1938 (Purdue U. Press, 1993) by Harold B. Segel
no box
I see no reason for calling my work poetry except that there is no other category in which to put it.
—Marianne Moore, National Book Award acceptance speech (1952)
—Marianne Moore, National Book Award acceptance speech (1952)
fragment, fragmentary
The fragment is doubtless a disappointing genre, but the only honest one.
—E.M. Cioran
—E.M. Cioran
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
