Date of Award

8-2013

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Master of Arts (MA)

Legacy Department

English

Committee Chair/Advisor

Bushnell, Cameron

Committee Member

McGrath , Brian M

Committee Member

Naimou , Angela

Abstract

This thesis argues the necessity of post modern elegy to adapt to new forms in writing in response to the indifference to death in modern societies, and the recklessness towards such an event. The cotemporary style of writing depends on series of elegies, which express an extended form of mourning as opposed to the circumscribed grief of an individual elegy. Postmodern analytical writings that discuss grief and mourning provide an ethical insight towards the continuous commemorations of the dead. It invites us to rethink the concept of mourning outside the clinical analysis of Freud. Emerging from the theories that study mourning and its depiction in poetry, this work tries to connect these theories to contemporary poets by focusing on the poetry of Matthew Dickman, setting him as an example of postmodern poets. Dickman often addresses the topic of elegy in his poetry. In his book, Mayakovsky's Revolver, he devotes a section of elegies to his dead brother. I investigate a slow reading of a group of his elegies. In doing so, I show the critical appearance of mourning in his daily life, linking his perpetual mourning to a new understanding of this theme where mourning departs its original frame into a new conception of continuous remembrance.

Share

COinS
 
 

To view the content in your browser, please download Adobe Reader or, alternately,
you may Download the file to your hard drive.

NOTE: The latest versions of Adobe Reader do not support viewing PDF files within Firefox on Mac OS and if you are using a modern (Intel) Mac, there is no official plugin for viewing PDF files within the browser window.