University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign

Metacognitive poetics: Modernist reflections on the performance of thinking

Penn, Darren

Content Files
PENN-DISSERTATION-2017.pdf

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https://hdl.handle.net/2142/99500

Description

Title
Metacognitive poetics: Modernist reflections on the performance of thinking
Author(s)
Penn, Darren
Issue Date
2017-12-07
Director of Research (if dissertation) or Advisor (if thesis)
Newcomb, Tim
Doctoral Committee Chair(s)
Nelson, Cary
Committee Member(s)
  • Mahaffey, Vicki
  • Blake, Nancy
Department of Study
English
Discipline
English
Degree Granting Institution
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Degree Name
Ph.D.
Degree Level
Dissertation
Date of Ingest
2018-03-13T17:35:42Z
Keyword(s)
  • Poetry
  • Modernism
  • Poetics
  • Modernist
  • Modernist poetry
  • Modernist literature
  • Wallace Stevens
  • Mina Loy
  • Sara Teasdale
  • T.S. Eliot
  • Maritime
  • Oceanic
  • Silence
  • Music
Abstract
This dissertation demonstrates how modernist poets dramatize the dynamic, complex mental dispositions and sensibilities necessary for readers to comprehend the notorious difficultly of modernist literature and handle the maelstrom of modernity. Beginning with, perhaps, the most philosophically overt poet to write in the twentieth century, chapter one demonstrates how Wallace Stevens dramatizes human cognition as a musical, tense, and sensuous experience. Chapter two extends these themes of Stevnesian cognition by examining the implications of where Stevens locates his thinking. Chapter three focuses on the ways in which female poets Sara Teasdale and Mina Loy dramatize human cognition as an embodied experience and, consequently, help subvert the oppressive legacy of Cartesian dualism. Chapter four returns to Stevens, and pairs his work with T.S. Eliot, to examine the way silence shapes their understanding of thinking. These chapters demonstrate the ways in which modernist poetry enables readers to achieve the cognitive temperaments necessary to most productively engage modernist literate and navigate modernity.
Graduation Semester
2017-12
Type of Resource
text
Permalink
http://hdl.handle.net/2142/99500
Copyright and License Information
Copyright 2017 Darren Penn

Owning Collections

Graduate Dissertations and Theses at Illinois PRIMARY
Graduate Theses and Dissertations at Illinois
Dissertations and Theses - English
Dissertations from the Dept. of English