Regions of Unlikeness: Contemporary Poetry Explained FROM THE PUBLISHER
In Regions of Unlikeness Thomas Gardner explores the ways a number of quite different twentieth-century American poets, including Elizabeth Bishop, John Ashbery, Robert Hass, Jorie Graham, and Michael Palmer, frame their work as taking place within, and being brought to life by, an acknowledgment of the limits of language. Gardner approaches their poetry in light of philosopher Stanley Cavell's remarkably similar engagement with the issues of skepticism and linguistic finitude. The skeptic's refusal to settle for anything less than perfect knowledge of the world, Cavell maintains, amounts to a refusal to accept the fact of human finitude, Gardner argues that both Cavell and the poets he discusses reject skepticism's world-erasing conclusions but nonetheless honor the truth about the limits of knowledge the skepticism keeps alive.
FROM THE CRITICS
Booknews
Gardner (English, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State U.) explores how a number of quite different 20th-century American poets frame their work within an acknowledgment of the limits of language. He compares the similar engagement of philosopher Stanley Cavell with issues of skepticism and linguistic finitude. Both, he says, attempt to renew language by teasing a drama out of their inability to grasp with certainty. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)
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