A Common Strangeness: Contemporary Poetry, Cross-Cultural Encounter, Comparative Literature

by Jacob Edmond

Overview

Why is our world still understood through binary oppositions-East and West, local and global, common and strange-that ought to have crumbled with the Berlin Wall? What might literary responses to the events that ushered in our era of globalization tell us about the rhetorical and historical underpinnings of these dichotomies?

In A Common Strangeness, Jacob Edmond exemplifies a new, multilingual and multilateral approach to literary and cultural studies. He begins with the entrance of China into multinational capitalism and the appearance of the Parisian flâneur in the writings of a Chinese poet exiled in Auckland, New Zealand. Moving among poetic examples in Russian, Chinese, and English, he then traces a series of encounters shaped by economic and geopolitical events from the Cultural Revolution, perestroika, and the June 4 massacre to the collapse of the Soviet Union, September 11, and the invasion of Iraq. In these encounters, Edmond tracks a shared concern with strangeness through which poets contested old binary oppositions as they reemerged in new, post-Cold War forms.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780823242597
Publisher:	Fordham University Press
Publication date:	06/01/2012
Series:	Verbal Arts: Studies in Poetics
Pages:	284
Product dimensions:	6.10(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.90(d)

About the Author

JACOB EDMOND teaches English at the University of Otago, New Zealand.

Table of Contents

List of Illustrations
Acknowledgments
Introduction
1. Yang Lian and the Flâneur in Exile
2. Arkadii Dragomoshchenko and Poetic Correspondences
3. Lyn Hejinian and Russian Estrangement
4. Bei Dao and World Literature
5. Dmitri Prigov and Cross-Cultural Conceptualism
6. Charles Bernstein and Broken English
Conclusion
Notes
Works Cited

Editorial Reviews

In this ambitious and rich work, Jacob Edmond explores the relationship between recent poetry and globalism. Rejecting both the traditional East/West binary and the local/global opposition which he sees as its replacement, Edmond maps out the middle ground- an area of contact and exchange in which seemingly disparate poets pursued a common poetics of strangeness in the post- Cold War years.

Slavic and East European Journal

"This book examines the changes in poetic discourses that have followed from the end of the Cold War and the rise of a global literature, and it engages with impressive competence in the fields of Chinese, American, and post-Soviet literary cultures. . . . An understated, versatile, and clear exponent of poetic analysis and cultural commentary

Andrew Kahn in the Slavic Review

Edmond’s book offers a rich and thought-provoking study and stimulates comparatist research. . . . the book offers an interesting juxtaposition of ‘estranged’ poets of various backgrounds and calls the reader’s attention to important politically and culturally controversial trends in societies such as China, Russia, and the U.S. It opens up new research vistas by drawing scholarly attention to issues that have become increasingly important in the contemporary world where old oppositions are no longer operative

Marina Grishakova and Märt Läänemets in Recherche littéraire / Literary

In this superb study Jacob Edmond adeptly and convincingly unites the theory and practice of disparate writers seeking varying cultural philosophies of commonness and strangeness under the broad, all-encompassing umbrella of politics, literary theory, culture, art, and philosophy. His edifying investigation invites further avenues of inquiry.

MIT Press (Project Muse) Journal of Cold War Studies

This book is a remarkable accomplishment. It resists the fashionable solution to the problem it sets itself—it does not seek to dismantle the genre of the poem in deference to the authority of contexts.

Brian Glaser in symplok

"A Common Strangeness is unique among studies of contemporary poetics in being genuinely global in its perspective and its reach. At home in Russian and Chinese as well as American poetry and that of his native New Zealand, Jacob Edmond pinpoints the crucial relationships that exist between what are seemingly disparate poetic cultures. The Chinese poet Yang Lian, who lived in exile in Auckland, is read under the sign of Benjamin and Baudelaire. The American Language poet Lyn Hejinian's important dialogue with the Russian avant-gardist Arkadii Dragomoshchenko is studied carefully, and Bei Dao, Dmitri Prigov, and Charles Bernstein are treated as representative figures of cross-cultural thinking in the age of globalism. Edmond's is a provocative, exciting, and genuinely original study of the new poetics; we will all be learning from it!"-Marjorie Perloff, Professor Emerita, Stanford University

"This bold triangulation of six Chinese, Russian, and American poets advances lively current debates about global literature by exploring encounters that challenge the old binarisms and chart possibilities of literary singularities for a future poetics. Edmond's shrewd account of literary crossings in post-Cold War history helps us imagine how we can experience the challenge of new literary configurations."-Jonathan Culler, Cornell University

"Jacob Edmond addresses what he calls 'forms of textual strangeness' across contemporary poems of beautiful complexity and staying power. This theoretically astute book challenges us to read with a keener eye and to recognize how much poetry can tell us about political catastrophes, national dislocations, and promises of cultural renewal."-Stephanie Sandler, Harvard University

"Edmond differs from most scholars who make a point of crossing national and linguistic boundaries to speak of a new 'world literature' in that he deals with non-Anglophone as well as Anglophone writers and can give close readings of the former as well as the latter because he knows their languages and the histories of their literatures. The fact that he applies this knowledge to a number of representative poems makes his study unique. . . . He makes significant contributions in the areas of literary history, textual analysis, and a theory of comparative literature that 'negates commensurability in favor of superimposition, encounter, and touch."—Michael Heim, University of California, Los Angeles

"Ultimately the readings support an interpretation of Benjamin as authority for interpreting the experience of globalization, or "common strangeness" as that experience appears in poetry. The close readings are . . . also very worthwhile in the context of critical discussion of World Literature." -Edward M. Gunn, Cornell University

"One of this book's secrets: it is, above all, a long essay on the relation between the general and the particular after deconstruction. What is it possible to say about poetry, or the global, in the face of the poem and the individual? As an antidote to these dichotomies, A Common Strangeness gives us triangles, operating in varied scales. Edmond's analysis of poets from the US, Russia, and China allows him to shed new light on the patterns of literary making and cosmopolitan thinking that drive the aesthetics of globalization today. Overlapping, Edmond's philosophical and linguistic triangles become hexagons, enneagons, dodecagons. These multiplying shapes provide fertile new ground for anyone interested in comparative poetics after 1989."-Eric Hayot, Penn State University

"'A Common Strangeness' is a work of real and very wide scholarship."- Nicholas Reid, Reid's Reader

"Jacob Edmond has written a remarkable book—impassioned, theoretically astute, and timely—that deserves to garner significant response across many fields in the humanities."-Vitaly Chernetsky, New Zealand Slavonic Journal

"Jacob Edmond's new book, A Common Strangeness, is anything but common and signals what I hope will be a new trend toward more ambitious studies of late-modernist to contemporary poetics on a global scale."-Jonathan Stallings, Modern Chinese Literature and Culture

The words transnational and globalization appear frequently within scholarship on contemporary poetry, but so far there have been few sustained attempts to narrate recent developments across more than two language-groups or geographical regions . . . At least one person can now be said to fill the bill. . . . Edmond shows himself to be thoroughly grounded in the relevant literary traditions, and whether a given poem is written in English, Russian, or Mandarin, he proves able to supply the kind of intensive, patient, erudite textual analysis that one associates with the Yale school back in its heyday. -Brian Reed, Contemporary Literature

"There is no doubt that A Common Strangeness, with its focal point in the aesthetic concept and device of estrangement, is a valuable contribution to recent scholarship that aims at finding new ways to look at the intricate network of relations of poetry to the world."-Cosima Bruno, The China Quarterly

"The words transnational and globalization appear frequently within scholarship on contemporary poetry, but so far there have been few sustained attempts to narrate recent developments across more than two language-groups or geographical regions . . . At least one person can now be said to fill the bill. . . . Edmond shows himself to be thoroughly grounded in the relevant literary traditions, and whether a given poem is written in English, Russian, or Mandarin, he proves able to supply the kind of intensive, patient, erudite textual analysis that one associates with the Yale school back in its heyday." -Brian Reed, Contemporary Literature

"In this ambitious and rich work, Jacob Edmond explores the relationship between recent poetry and globalism. Rejecting both the traditional East/West binary and the local/global opposition which he sees as its replacement, Edmond maps out the middle ground- an area of contact and exchange in which seemingly disparate poets pursued a common poetics of strangeness in the post- Cold War years." -Slavic and East European Journal

"This book is a remarkable accomplishment. It resists the fashionable solution to the problem it sets itself—it does not seek to dismantle the genre of the poem in deference to the authority of contexts."—Brian Glaser, symploke

"This book examines the changes in poetic discourses that have followed from the end of the Cold War and the rise of a global literature, and it engages with impressive competence in the fields of Chinese, American, and post-Soviet literary cultures. . . . An understated, versatile, and clear exponent of poetic analysis and cultural commentary"—Andrew Kahn, Slavic Review

"Edmond's book offers a rich and thought-provoking study and stimulates comparatist research. . . . the book offers an interesting juxtaposition of 'estranged' poets of various backgrounds and calls the reader's attention to important politically and culturally controversial trends in societies such as China, Russia, and the U.S. It opens up new research vistas by drawing scholarly attention to issues that have become increasingly important in the contemporary world where old oppositions are no longer operative."—Marina Grishakova and Märt Läänemets, Recherche littéraire / Literary Research

"The strength of Edmond's study is the close readings of each poet, which are subtle and insightful across the broad range of national traditions he examines."—Joseph Acquisto, The Modern Language Review

"This is an engaging and bold study, which combines skillful close reading with theoretical astuteness." -The Russian Review

From the Publisher

This book is a remarkable accomplishment. It resists the fashionable solution to the problem it sets itself—it does not seek to dismantle the genre of the poem in deference to the authority of contexts.

Brian Glaser in symplokē

The strength of Edmond’s study is the close readings of each poet, which are subtle and insightful across the broad range of national traditions he examines.

Joseph Acquisto in The Modern Language Review

Edmond’s book offers a rich and thought-provoking study and stimulates comparatist research. . . . the book offers an interesting juxtaposition of ‘estranged’ poets of various backgrounds and calls the reader’s attention to important politically and culturally controversial trends in societies such as China, Russia, and the U.S. It opens up new research vistas by drawing scholarly attention to issues that have become increasingly important in the contemporary world where old oppositions are no longer operative

Marina Grishakova and Märt Läänemets in Recherche littéraire / Literary

There is no doubt that A Common Strangeness, with its focal point in the aesthetic concept and device of estrangement, is a valuable contribution to recent scholarship that aims at finding new ways to look at the intricate network of relations of poetry to the world.

The China Quarterly - Cosima Bruno

The words transnational and globalization appear frequently within scholarship on contemporary poetry, but so far there have been few sustained attempts to narrate recent developments across more than two language-groups or geographical regions . . . At least one person can now be said to fill the bill. . . . Edmond shows himself to be thoroughly grounded in the relevant literary traditions, and whether a given poem is written in English, Russian, or Mandarin, he proves able to supply the kind of intensive, patient, erudite textual analysis that one associates with the Yale school back in its heyday.

Contemporary Literature - Brian Reed

This is an engaging and bold study, which combines skillful close reading with theoretical astuteness.

The Russian Review - Alexander K. Harrington