Date of Award
1982
Degree Type
Thesis
Degree Name
Master of Arts in English
Department
English
First Advisor
Nancy Potter
Abstract
The movement of poetry in the Twentieth Century has been toward a poetics that is direct, personal, and eclectic in language and philosophy. Corresponding with and arising out of this movement has been the accelerating decline in the lifespan of each new poetic school. This rapid, evolutionary pace has become an integral part of our literature and is mainly caused by the increase in social pressure on the individual. With the advent of the atomic age, the decline of Christian Humanism and the increase in technological alienation, the individual and his poetic focus has been forced to turn inward in order to find a more secure and independent voice.
The Book of Nightmares, by Galway Kinnell, is a long poem which addresses the problems of contemporary man. As a long poem, it is the synthesis of the traditions recognized in Whitman and later advanced by Eliot and Pound. As a guidebook for contemporary man, it explores, through the persona of the poet, both man's fear of death and his loss of values, and tries in the process to create those conditions by which acceptance and understanding can be reached.
The literary importance of The Book of Nightmares, overlooked by even sympathetic critics, is its quintessential reflection of the diverse post-modern poetry concerned with primitivism, confessionalism, existentialism and abstract symbolism. All the traditions, both past and present, which are brought to life in The Book of Nightmares, qualify this long poem as one of the most important literary landmarks of the decade.
The chapters of this thesis have been developed and arranged in a cumulative manner. This has been done in order to follow more closely the sectionally independent and fragmentary structure of the poem. The opening chapter is a general summary of the character and direction of American poetry from the Modernists to the present. Such poets as Eliot, Williams and Stevens are briefly examined for their contribution to the development of structure, poetic persona, and the use of imagination. Chapter two narrows the overview of this poetic period to an examination of the trends in the American long poem. Chapter three begins to look closely at The Book of Nightmares, and specifically at the first poem. Each successive chapter in the thesis deals with one of the ten individual poems that comprise the book or, more appropriately, the long poem. In these chapters the focus is on the structure, method, interpretation, and contemporaneous significance of the poem. In chapter thirteen a summary is given of the problems that some readers and critics have encountered. In addition to these criticisms, the various merits and successes of the poem are outlined.
Recommended Citation
Parker, Miles D. III, "A CRITICAL AND INTERPRETATIVE STUDY OF GALWAY KINNELL'S THE BOOK OF NIGHTMARES" (1982). Open Access Master's Theses. Paper 2547.
https://digitalcommons.uri.edu/theses/2547