Contentious Figuration in the Poetry of Plath, Stevens, and Dickinson

In Contentious Figuration in the Poetry of Plath, Stevens, and Dickinson, Colleen Shuching Wu challenges the recent literary critical practice of contextualizing works, arguing that context is a double-edged sword when it comes to understanding the work as it's presented. On the one hand, context places a literary text in an interpretive paradigm or moment in time that aids in discovering its meanings and values; on the other hand, it disregards how a work can develop an internal force or critique of its own that contends with external factors. Wu's argument delves into current debates about poetic language and its rhetoric, focusing on three major poets—Emily Dickinson, Wallace Stevens, and Sylvia Plath—for their excellent rhetorical techniques and figurative speech, which characterize and define their poetic styles. While presenting detailed evaluations of their works, Wu also explores the contentious relationship between lyric poetry and external contexts—an inquiry with surprising consequences for the ways we talk about figurative language and determine the outer limits of poetic craft.

Contentious Figuration in the Poetry of Plath, Stevens, and Dickinson incorporates important theoretical frameworks (such as those formulated by Theodor W. Adorno, Paul de Man, Jacques Derrida, Walter Benjamin, Roman Jakobson, and others), while presenting vigorous critical discussions about poetic language and the function of its rhetoric. Wu's approach explores the intersection between literature and critical theory while also registering the tension and contention between literary texts and critical theory discourse.