This thesis argues that Claudia Rankine's two American lyrics destabilize the subject-object dialectic underwriting American lyricism. First, I consider Don’t Let Me Be Lonely’s rejection of spectatorship, insofar as spectatorship objectifies the suffering of the Other. Second, I analyze Citizen’s subversion of the lyric “I”, particularly as it vocalizes the “you”-position traditionally relegated to poetic object. I suggest that both works, by returning power to the object, manifest an aesthetic disruption to the racially-based power dialectic underpinning American lyric tradition. Eventually, I propose that Rankine mobilizes the poem as a future-space for the realization of an ideal politics.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:CLAREMONT/oai:scholarship.claremont.edu:scripps_theses-2198 |
| Date | 01 January 2018 |
| Creators | Conlon, Rose B. |
| Publisher | Scholarship @ Claremont |
| Source Sets | Claremont Colleges |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Source | Scripps Senior Theses |
| Rights | © 2017 Rose B. Conlon, default |
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