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Type of Document Dissertation Author Harris, Kaplan Page Author's Email Address Harris.87@nd.edu URN etd-12042003-085904 Title The Inherited Self: Autobiography and History in American Avant-Garde Poetry Degree Doctor of Philosophy Department English Advisory Committee
Advisor Name Title Stephen Fredman Committee Chair Keywords
- Susan Howe
- Charles Olson
- Ezra Pound
- Henry Adams
Date of Defense 2003-11-14 Availability restricted Abstract If a poet assumes that the self is a product of history, then the historical poem becomes,in effect, a new form of autobiography. This shifts the emphasis of autobiography from a
self that precedes or anchors history to a self that “comes out” of history. My dissertation is
about how this view of an “inherited self” reinvents autobiography and thereby provides an
entirely new way to read the historical epics of Ezra Pound and Charles Olson and the
historical lyrics of Susan Howe. I begin with an _ars poetica_ of the inherited self in the work of
Henry Adams, whose turn from autobiography to history sets a pattern that is more or less
followed by the later poets. I look next at the seeds of Howe’s investigation of inheritance in
her early poetry and art criticism from the 1970s. In another chapter I suggest that the
documentary forms associated with historical poetry should be read as documenting
inheritance rather than documenting history as such. Because the document provides a
window onto each poet’s inheritance, the documentary form is essential for the
autobiography of an inherited self. In the final chapter I examine the tendency of each poet
to assume or “take on” historical figures as precursors of the present—as for example
certain archetypal figures for Olson and Emily Dickinson for Howe. I conclude by briefly suggesting how a reinvention of autobiography can be seen in the work of recent avantgarde
poets who assume the self is constituted not so much by history as by language or
culture.
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