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OverviewAnglophone Verse Novels as Gutter Texts draws on the notion of the ‘gutter’ in graphic narratives – the gap between panels that a reader has to imaginatively fill to generate narrative sequence – to analyse the largely overlooked literary form of the verse novel. Marked at all levels by the tense constellation of segment and sequence, and a conspicuously 'gappy' texture, verse novels offer productive alternatives to the dominant prose novel in contemporary fiction, where a similar ‘gappiness’ has become a hallmark, as illustrated by the loosely interlaced multi-strand plot structures of influential ‘world novels’ (Bolaño, Mitchell, Powers). The verse novel is a form particularly prolific in the postcolonial world and among diasporic or minoritarian writers in the Global North. This study concentrates on two of the most prominent areas in which verse novels distinguish themselves from the prose novel to read texts by Derek Walcott, Anne Carson, Bernardine Evaristo, Patience Agbabi and others: In ‘planetary’ verse novels from the Caribbean, Canada, Samoa and Hawai’i, the central trope of the volcano evokes a world in constant un/making; while post-national verse novels, particularly in Britain, modify the established paradigms of imagined communities. Dirk Wiemann's study speculates whether the resurgence of verse novels correlates with the apprehension of inhabiting a world that has become unpredictable and dangerous but also promising: a ‘post-prosaic’ world. Full Product DetailsAuthor: Prof. Dr. Dirk Wiemann (University of Potsdam, Germany)Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing Plc Imprint: Bloomsbury Academic USA ISBN: 9781501399503ISBN 10: 1501399500 Pages: 240 Publication Date: 13 July 2023 Audience: Professional and scholarly , Professional & Vocational Format: Hardback Publisher's Status: Active Availability: Manufactured on demand  We will order this item for you from a manufactured on demand supplier. Table of ContentsList of figures Acknowledgements List of abbreviations 1. Introduction: In the gutter ... 1.1 Gutter texts and the politics of form 1.2 Verse novels as gutter texts 1.3 Gappiness and incompleteness 1.4 Connexionism and minor cosmopolitanisms 1.5 Gappy planet and incomplete nation: Michael Cawood Green’s Sinking 2. Volcanic verses: The planet as verb 2.1 Sibylline cures: Derek Walcott’s Omeros 2.2 ‘Links between geology and character’: Anne Carson’s Autobiography of Red 2.3 The space that connects: Albert Wendt’s The Adventures of Vela 2.4 The planet as praxis: W.S. Merwin’s The Folding Cliffs 3. In/verse Britain: The poetics of the post-nation 3.1 A million epiphanies now: Kae Tempest’s Let Them Eat Chaos 3.2 ‘But I dreamt of creating mosaics’: Bernardine Evaristo’s The Emperor’s Babe 3.3 Detoxing England: Patience Agbabi’s Telling Tales 3.4 Untelling tales: Anagrammatic Blackness in m. NourbeSe Philip’s Zong! 4. Epilogue: … looking at the stars Bibliography IndexReviewsA lucid, conceptually rich and erudite intervention which brings into focus the 'aberrant', 'off-beat' genre of the Anglophone verse novel. Drawing attention to a flourishing bibliodiversity, Anglophone Verse Novels as Gutter Texts acts against the persistent centring of the novel as the pre-eminent form of literary world-making in postcolonial and world literature scholarship, thus offering a significant re-assessment of the field. Through a careful analysis of the social implications of 'gappy' form, Dirk Wieman fashions a compelling and layered argument about the verse novel's propensity to imagine alternative, unfinished social worlds and undecided futures. * Corinne Sandwith, Professor of English, University of Pretoria, South Africa * Wiemann's wonderfully stimulating study ranges across the globe from the Global South to the post-Imperial metropolis, offering scintillating glimpses of little studied but vibrant and timely genre, the contemporary verse novel. Above all, Wiemann gives us new and vital insights into the relationship between literary form and the sociopolitical realities of our violent times. * Russell West-Pavlov, Professor of Anglophone Literatures, University of Tubingen, Germany * Wiemann identifies an important and under-examined segment of the postcolonial canon - the verse-novel - and provides an eloquent defense and analysis of key works in that form, emphasizing the interconnectedness of formal and ideological analysis. A valuable expansion of the discourse of the world novel beyond the usual suspects. * Alexander Beecroft, Professor of Comparative Literature, University of South Carolina, USA * Author InformationDirk Wiemann is Chair in English Literature at University of Potsdam, Germany. He is author of Genres of Modernity: Contemporary Indian Novels in English (2008) and Postcolonial Literatures in English: An Introduction (2019, with Anke Bartels, Lars Eckstein and Nicole Waller), and editor of numerous collections, including Postcolonial Justice (2017, with Anke Bartels, Lars Eckstein and Nicole Waller). Tab Content 6Author Website:Countries AvailableAll regions |
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