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.
Recommended Citation
Almaowashi, Sumood, "A Slow Reading in Matthew Dickman's Elegiac and Nostalgic Poetry" (2013). All Theses. 1696.
https://open.clemson.edu/all_theses/1696