Reclaiming the book-object: appropriated texts in 21st century poetry

Reclaiming the Book-Object considers acts of literary appropriation in contemporary poetry—where one document, a book or series of poems, is transformed into a new of book of poems by means of erasure, editing, and/or revisioning. Recent decades have seen a resurgence of such visual and poetic appropriations, and special attention is given to contemporary rewritings of Emily Dickinson’s poems and William Shakespeare’s sonnets. As the 21st century offers new modes and concerns of production and reproduction—emphasizing relationships between form and content, process and product, past and present—these present-day book-length appropriations exaggerate their reliance on a pre-existing poetic text, revealing a decisive shift in basic qualities of composition and authorship. Too, the physical object of the book often plays a key role in these new works, further complicating boundaries of the poetic act. The dissertation includes an introduction, ""Claiming the Book-Object,"" and three essays: ""Reading THE MS OF M Y KIN: Janet Holmes and Emily Dickinson,"" ""Revising the Ultimate Source Text: Contemporary Appropriations of Shakespeare's Sonnets,"" and ""Coda: 'Destroying' the Text to Create the Poem."" An original book of poems, (aviary), is the final component of this dissertation.《"书籍本体"的复归》（Reclaiming the Book-Object）以当代诗歌中的文学挪用行为为研究议题：即通过删改、编辑与重构改写的方式，将某一文档（单部诗集或组诗）转化为一部全新的诗歌集。近数十年来，这类视觉与诗歌挪用创作再度兴起，本研究特别聚焦于艾米莉·狄金森（Emily Dickinson）诗作与威廉·莎士比亚（William Shakespeare）十四行诗的当代重写实践。随着21世纪为创作与再生产提供了全新的模式与议题——愈发强调形式与内容、过程与成果、过去与当下之间的关联——这类当代长篇诗歌挪用创作进一步凸显了其对既有诗歌文本的依赖，由此揭示了诗歌创作与作者身份核心特质的决定性转向。此外，书籍的物理实体本身往往在这些新作中扮演核心角色，进一步模糊了诗歌创作行为的边界。本论文包含引言《"认领"书籍本体》（Claiming the Book-Object），以及三篇学术论文：《阅读〈MY KIN手稿〉：珍妮特·霍姆斯（Janet Holmes）与艾米莉·狄金森》、《修订终极源文本：莎士比亚十四行诗的当代挪用》与《结语："消解"文本以创作诗歌》。本论文的最终组成部分为原创诗集《鸟舍》（aviary）。