Palimpsest

Date of Graduation

Fall 1985

Degree

Master of Arts in English

Department

English

Committee Chair

Robert Henigan

Abstract

Palimpsest presents the belief that the common bond between one metaphysical poet and another exists in their attempts to articulate a relationship to some ultimate, unifying reality, and that the primary methods employed in the articulation of the relationship depend on the analogical functions of language. The work examines experience and poetry from the perspective aesthetic knowledge which uses methods of concretion rather than abstraction, explores the necessity of expressing poetic knowledge in terms of the sensible world, and explores the use of analogical functions of specific language forms as means of representing an experience of a relationship to a trancendent unifying reality. The poems are representations of my experiences in relation to the transcendent Reality that enables me to compose meaningful form in my life and work. I experience this living, ordering Reality as Christ. Contents: The metaphysics of metaphysical poetry -- Poems...or a prayer -- Preparation. Misplaced muse -- First prelude. Late summer ; A state of innocence ; Narcissus at the kitchen sink ; Truth in perspective ; A sciolism ; Black knowledge ; Elysium in Kansas ; Dry plateau ; To Parmenides -- Second prelude. Red moon rising ; The rose ; Chameleon ; Dry spell ; Woman at the window ; Psyche in the light ; Apotheosis ; A poem about God, sex, and nuclear disarmament ; A song for the stoic ; Winter dawn on the Gulf ; Gypsy flats flea market -- Meditations. Prairie winds ; Thymus vulgaris ; Moldy zinnias ; Notes on the fall ; November snow ; Winter tree ; Spring that ; Astral love ; Sacrifice ; The basketmaker ; Palimpsest ; A hospital visit ; Amazing grace ; Foggy Sunday at church ; Looking for pilots' rainbows ; Ice cream at annual conference ; Remember rivers ; A lady at local pastor's licensing school ; Morning dark -- Colloquy. An orange ; Bird songs ; Dancing shadows ; Prayer on a cloudy day ; Looking for fish.

Subject Categories

English Language and Literature

Copyright

© Pamela Dilmore Hadsall

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Dissertation/Thesis

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