Modernism and the other in Stevens, Frost, and Moore

In a critically courageous and original reading, Andrew Lakritz reinterprets American poetic modernism by linking three unlikely avatars of modernism - Wallace Stevens, Robert Frost, and Marianne Moore - and viewing them through the lens of theorist Walter Benjamin.

Stevens, Frost, and Moore are often viewed as withdrawn from or unconcerned with social issues. This study, by contrast, shows how gender, class, and political issues influence the way these poets use language. Lakritz uses Benjamin's and Theodor Adorno's critical perspectives to reframe formal and aesthetic questions in terms of the cultural contexts of the modern moment in the United States.

His book will appeal to critics interested in Marxist theory and in theoretical approaches to poetry generally and to specialists in American literary modernism and postmodernism.