Echoes and moving fields : structure and subjectivity in the poetry of W.S. Merwin and John Ashbery /

Combining phenomenological and structural theories with close readings of a number of individual poems, and using mixes of memory and meaning and dichotomies such as absence versus presence, Hoeppner argues a temporal and "topographical" interpretation of Merwin and Ashbery that goes back to precursors like Emily Dickinson and Walt Whitman and forward to parallels between Merwin's "essentialist poetry" and Martin Heidegger's phenomenology, and between Ashbery's work and Henry Bergson's notion of dur'ee as well as his "description of consciousness." If this study is not up-to-date in terms of either poet--the complete lack of coverage of Ashbery's important recent volumes, April Galleons (1987), Flow Chart (1991), and Hotel Lautr'eamont (1992) is particularly conspicuous--and if it might have benefited from a more perspicacious editorial eye and ear, it nevertheless does outline Merwin's "predilections for language," which establish a "teleology of ultimate silence" that "counters" Ashbery's "hope" for an "eschaton that will institute unmediated presence." As such, this book makes a useful contribution to the study of contemporary American poetry. Recommended for academic libraries, undergraduate and up. W. V. Davis; Baylor University