The Hermeneutics of Birdsong is an examination of the tensions, boundaries, and interplay between creative and critical writing. Composed principally of free-verse lyric poems grouped by theme into four chapters, the collection also includes a parallel text consisting of critical commentary, quotes from theorists, and at times, more poems. The parallel text, in its discussion of the nature of language, intentionality, intertextuality, authorship, anxiety of influence, imagination, and the creative process, attempts to make explicit the hidden theoretical assumptions which are the invisible "center" of any mode of discourse, including a poetry collection. / The primary and parallel texts function simultaneously as a collage or ideogram, in which the individual poems and critical commentaries coalesce to create a unified, though seemingly fragmented, whole. In keeping with this blending of the creative and the critical, quotes from other sources are used in both a traditional and non-traditional manner. At times, the outside critical commentary is formatted typographically as poetry or as an epigraph for a primary-text poem. The goal for this non-traditional use of source material is to explore and explode the traditional conception of the antithetical positions of the "creative" and the "critical" by challenging the reader's expectations. / Indeed, by forcing the reader to experience criticism as poetry, or poetry as criticism, the primary and parallel texts seek to demonstrate the arbitrary generic distinctions often used to label or judge writing, and thus offer the reader new positions from which to experience and assess the nature and interaction of critical and creative writing. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 57-03, Section: A, page: 1132. / Major Professor: Wendy Bishop. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--The Florida State University, 1996.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:fsu.edu/oai:fsu.digital.flvc.org:fsu_77667 |
| Contributors | Fike, Darrell., Florida State University |
| Source Sets | Florida State University |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Text |
| Format | 110 p. |
| Rights | On campus use only. |
| Relation | Dissertation Abstracts International |
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