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Chapter 16 - Manner and Manners

from Part III - Revisionary Readings of Stevens

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  18 June 2021

Bart Eeckhout
Affiliation:
Universiteit Antwerpen, Belgium
Gül Bilge Han
Affiliation:
Uppsala Universitet, Sweden
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Summary

Finch’s chapter argues that the rhetorical artifice in Wallace Stevens’s poetry may be best understood through the concept of manner. In contrast with style, which focuses on the personal signature of a writer’s work, manner refers to the more social, public aspects of a writer’s rhetorical bearing. Drawing on a range of critics who have theorized aesthetic manner and the politics of manners, including Pierre Bourdieu, Giorgio Agamben, Henry James, and Lionel Trilling, this chapter proposes that Stevens’s interest in textiles and clothing, in figurations of nobility, and in the mannerist syntax of repetition are not just neutral aesthetic traits but expressions of a sensibility tied to social categories that include class and race. After examining these intersections in poems spanning Stevens’s career, Finch closes by suggesting that the most meaningful approaches to Stevens’s formal prosody should remain attentive to the social posture and cultural tones of his language.

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Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2021

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References

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