Includes bibliographical references (pages 215-233) and index.

Self and Sensibility in Contemporary American Poetry is an inquiry into the cultural roles lyric poetry does and can play in our age. Charles Altieri first establishes a dominant mode in "serious" American poetry by identifying current assumptions inherent in the teaching of creative writing and the awarding of prizes and contracts. The dominant mode is seen not as a prescribed style but as a set of styles that share assumptions and that tend to seek the same narrow audience. Altieri views this mode as essentially scenic, presenting in brief dramatic settings subdued, carefully wrought emotions that build to a climactic tactile image. In examining why the style appeals, the author suggests that we find in the dominant mode models of the self, of the power of language, and of the nature of emotions that are very, close to the prudential narcissism of the professional classes. Two theses follow: that contemporary poetry can be approached as a paradigm for analyzing literature in.

Cultural terms (since we know the culture well on independent grounds); and that the cultural analogies help demonstrate the pressures on younger poets to explore styles that break from or attempt to overthrow the dominant mode.

The book attempts to describe three of these alternatives and to determine evaluative principles for judging the results, with the hope of stimulating debate about future directions in American poetry. The simplest break from the dominant mode occurs by transforming it from within. Scene becomes playful, the controlling voice more self-conscious, and the emotions more expansive and personalized. In the hands of poets like Robert Hass, Louise Gluck, and Stephen Dunn, this approach produces rich individual poems but cannot fully confront its own limitations or restore a large range of lyrical powers. The second approach, represented at different poles by Robert Pinsky and a variety of Objectivist poets, seeks a total shift in poetry from its Romantic roots to stances that can address pressing intellectual issues. These experiments, however, often become trapped in their own high intentionsûthus clarifying the cultural roles the third approach can play in its insistence on.

Authorial self-consciousness as the fundamental site of poetry. Extended discussions of Robert Creeley, John Ashbery, and Adrienne Rich test modes of self-consciousness for their power to handle the kinds of problems the other poems create or encounter.

These tests lay the groundwork for a final chapter that makes the author's evaluative principles explicit. Professor Altieri concludes by using these principles to criticize the contemporary practices in teaching and reviewing lyric poetry. Poetry is no longer the cutting edge for literary sensibilitiesûa situation that calls for analysis and change. --Book Jacket.

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