From pop culture to politics to vintage novels, quintessentially American texts take their concept from the assumption of infinity. within the striking literary century inaugurated by means of Ralph Waldo Emerson, the lyric too appeared to come upon chances as unlimited because the U.S. mind's eye. This increases the query: What occurs while boundlessness is greater than only a determine of speech? Exploring new horizons is something, yet truly taking a look at the horizon itself is whatever altogether varied. during this conscientiously crafted research, James von der Heydt shines a brand new mild at the lyric craft of Emily Dickinson, Robert Frost, Elizabeth Bishop, and James Merrill and considers how their seascape-vision redefines poetry's purpose.Emerson famously freed U.S. literature from its earlier and opened it as much as vastness; within the following century, a succession of very good, rigorous poets took the philosophical demanding situations of such freedom all too heavily. dealing with the unmarked horizon, Emersonian poets trap - and are captured by way of - a stark, astringent model of human attractiveness. Their uncompromising visions of limitlessness reclaim infinity's right legacy - and provides American poetry its aspect. Von der Heydt's publication recovers the secret in their global.
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