Skip to content
You are not logged in |Login  
     
Limit search to available items
Record:   Prev Next
Resources
More Information
Bestseller
BestsellerE-book
Author Rieke, Alison.

Title The senses of nonsense / by Alison Rieke.

Publication Info. Iowa City, IA : University of Iowa Press, [1992]
©1992

Item Status

Description 1 online resource (x, 283 pages)
Physical Medium polychrome
Description text file
Bibliography Includes bibliographical references (pages 263-275) and index.
Contents 1. Secret sense, coherent nonsense -- 2. James Joyce : double-crossing sinse [sic] -- 3. Gertrude Stein : mastering pieces -- 4. Wallace Stevens : as if in a book -- 5. Louis Zukofsky : Z-sited harmonies -- 6. Conclusion : postreintroducing.
Access Use copy Restrictions unspecified MiAaHDL
Summary "Joyce, Stein, Stevens, and Zukofsky might easily be considered the most intractable and obscure of our Modernist writers; they are widely recognized (if not widely lauded) for their startling disruptions of grammar, syntax, semantic coherence - in short, all the conventional sense-making functions of language. In this absorbing, perceptive study Alison Rieke addresses the problem of defining and characterizing the experimental uses of language that emerge out of this shared tradition of literary nonsense and enigmatic writing." "Here the difficult linguistic ventures of the four are examined, compared, and contrasted, from Joyce's daring monument to comic nonsense, Finnegans Wake, and Stein's secretive autobiography, Stanzas in Meditation, to Stevens' enigmatic poems in quest of the "supreme fiction" and Zukofsky's radically experimental long poem, "A." Rieke shows how "nonsense" usefully accounts for the various disruptions upon which many of their most impenetrable writings depend and how each author's motives of disruption are bound up with motives of secrecy, how each hides sense in riddle and enigma, wordplay, and verbal sleight of hand. Throughout, Rieke offers detailed treatment of each individual author, making clear distinctions among them through close textual analysis." "Ultimately Rieke adroitly illustrates that these authors' experimental disruptions tend less toward denying the sensible than toward accepting and absorbing it as a tool advantageously manipulated, inverted, and twisted in the production of an enigmatic art. Students of Modernism, readers of Joyce, Stein, Stevens, and Zukofsky, and all those interested in wordplay and semantics will want to read this book."--Jacket.
Reproduction Electronic reproduction. [S.l.] : HathiTrust Digital Library, 2010. MiAaHDL
System Details Master and use copy. Digital master created according to Benchmark for Faithful Digital Reproductions of Monographs and Serials, Version 1. Digital Library Federation, December 2002. http://purl.oclc.org/DLF/benchrepro0212 MiAaHDL
Processing Action digitized 2010 HathiTrust Digital Library committed to preserve MiAaHDL
Local Note eBooks on EBSCOhost EBSCO eBook Subscription Academic Collection - North America
Subject Zukofsky, Louis, 1904-1978 -- Technique.
Zukofsky, Louis, 1904-1978.
Technique.
Stevens, Wallace, 1879-1955 -- Technique.
Stevens, Wallace, 1879-1955.
Stein, Gertrude, 1874-1946 -- Technique.
Stein, Gertrude, 1874-1946.
Joyce, James, 1882-1941 -- Technique.
Zukofsky, Louis, 1904-1978.
Stevens, Wallace, 1879-1955.
Stein, Gertrude, 1874-1946.
Joyce, James, 1882-1941.
Joyce, James, 1882-1941.
Zukofsky, Louis.
Stevens, Wallace.
Stein, Gertrude.
Joyce, James.
American literature -- 20th century -- History and criticism.
American literature.
Chronological Term 20th century
Subject Modernism (Literature)
Modernism (Literature)
Literature, Experimental -- History and criticism.
Literature, Experimental.
Nonsense literature -- History and criticism.
Nonsense literature.
Chronological Term 1900 - 1999
Genre/Form Electronic books.
Criticism, interpretation, etc.
Other Form: Print version: Rieke, Alison. Senses of nonsense. Iowa City, IA : University of Iowa Press, ©1992 0877453845 (DLC) 92010292 (OCoLC)25712005
ISBN 1587292041 (electronic book)
9781587292040 (electronic book)
0877453845 (acid-free paper)
9780877453840 (acid-free paper)