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    The Senses of Muriel Rukeyser’s The Book of the Dead


    Gander, Catherine (2011) The Senses of Muriel Rukeyser’s The Book of the Dead. European Journal of American Culture, 30 (3). pp. 175-194. ISSN 1466-0407

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    Abstract

    When Muriel Rukeyser travelled to Gauley Bridge in 1936 to report on the industrial disaster that had led to the deaths of over 700 miners, her findings led her to write what is arguably her masterpiece - the 1938 poem series The Book of the Dead. Of all Rukeyser's writings, this hybriit work bf documentary techniques and metaphors, of testimony and elegy, has attracted the most critical attention. However, analyses of the series have tended to focus on the ways in which the poet adopted and adapted documenta.ry methods in order to offer a leftist ideological critique on capitalist-born social injustice. The purpose of this article is not to negate such readings, but to offer alongside them insight into a more ethical-philosophical approach that [ believe guided Rukeyser's entire career. Via an examination of the ways in which Rukeyser employs the human senses to articulate the complexities of human political, metaphysical and social relations, this article explores the influence of the Zionist Martin Buber on the poet. Rukeyser acknowledged Buber's writings in her later work, but I contend here that they played a large part in the formation of her poetics, especially in connection with her documentary aesthetic. Whilst several critics have noted, albeit often superficially, the Marxist flavour of Rukeyser's poetry in The Book of the Dead, I argue for the influence of Buber over Marx in terms or responsibility, community and dialogue? Both Rukeyser's and Buber's methods of expressing and promoting these ethical necessities rely on a synaesthetic response to the world. Where Buber advances a dialogue between the self and alterity through transcendent personal encounter, Rukeyser locates such encounter in the poem, arguing for an exchange that leads to creation, and to personal and interpersonal growth.

    Item Type: Article
    Keywords: senses; ethical; creation; exchange; synaesthetic; witness;
    Academic Unit: Faculty of Arts,Celtic Studies and Philosophy > School of English, Media & Theatre Studies > English
    Item ID: 12908
    Identification Number: https://doi.org/10.1386/ejac.30.3.175_1
    Depositing User: Catherine Gander
    Date Deposited: 18 May 2020 14:57
    Journal or Publication Title: European Journal of American Culture
    Publisher: Intellect Limited
    Refereed: Yes
    URI:
    Use Licence: This item is available under a Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial Share Alike Licence (CC BY-NC-SA). Details of this licence are available here

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