Many gods and many voices : the role of the prophet in English and American modernism

Resource Information

The work Many gods and many voices : the role of the prophet in English and American modernism represents a distinct intellectual or artistic creation found in University of Missouri-St. Louis Libraries. This resource is a combination of several types including: Work, Language Material, Books.

Label

Many gods and many voices : the role of the prophet in English and American modernism

Title remainder

the role of the prophet in English and American modernism

Statement of responsibility

Louis L. Martz

Creator

• Martz, Louis L., (Louis Lohr), 1913-2001

Contributor

• University of Missouri Press

Subject

• Gods in literature
• Lawrence, D. H., (David Herbert), 1885-1930 -- Characters | Prophets
• Modernism (Literature) -- Great Britain
• Modernism (Literature) -- United States
• American poetry -- 20th century -- History and criticism
• Prophets in literature
• Religion and literature
• Prophecies in literature

Language

eng

Summary

"In Many Gods and Many Voices distinguished scholar Louis L. Martz addresses works by Ezra Pound, T. S. Eliot, William Carlos Williams, H. D., and D. H. Lawrence, with brief treatment of the relation of Pound's Cantos to Joyce's Ulysses. In a graceful, lucid style, Martz argues that a prophetic tradition is represented in the Cantos, The Waste Land, Paterson, and H. D.'s Trilogy and Helen in Egypt, along with Lawrence's Plumed Serpent and the second version of Lady Chatterley's Lover. Pound's often- cited view that an epic is a poem that "includes history" does not define epic alone, for the books of biblical prophecy also contain history: the history of Israel's misdeeds and continuous redemption. On the other hand, Martz suggests that the term prophecy should not be limited to works that foretell the future, arguing that the biblical prophet is concerned primarily with the present. The prophet is a reformer, a denouncer of evil, as well as a seer of possible redemption. He hears "voices" and transmits the message of those voices to his people, in the hope of moving them away from wickedness and toward the ways of truth. According to Martz, such was the mission that inspired Walt Whitman and that Whitman passed on to Pound, Eliot, Williams, and Lawrence. (H. D. found her own sources of inspiration in Greek and Egyptian lore.) Martz's premise is that biblical prophecy, with its mingling of poetry and prose, its abrupt shifts from violent denunciation to exalted poetry, provides a precedent for the texture of these modernist works that will help readers to appreciate the mingling of "voices" and the complex mixture of elements. Examining their interrelationships and their common themes, Many Gods and Many Voices offers fresh insights into these modern writers."--Publishers website

Cataloging source

DLC

Dewey number

811/.5209112

Government publication

government publication of a state province territory dependency etc

Index

index present

LC call number

PS310.M57

LC item number

M37 1998

Literary form

non fiction

Nature of contents

bibliography