1st Edition
Wallace Stevens and Pre-Socratic Philosophy Metaphysics and the Play of Violence
Introduction Part I: Wallace Stevens, Pre-Socratic Philosophy and Ontological Literature 1. Approaching the Poetics of Being 2. The Ontological Experience of the Work of Art Part II: Wallace Stevens (1923 – 1942), Pre-Socratic Philosophy, and Immanuel Kant 3. After Kant: The Attempt to Experience the ‘Thing-In-Itself’ through the Pre-Socratic Element in the Philosophy of Art 4. Polemos and the Violent Nature of the ‘Thing-in-Itself’ Part III: Wallace Stevens (1947-1955) , Pre-Socratic Philosophy, and Immanuel Kant 5. A Pre-Socratic Sense of Being as the Universal ‘Thing-in-Itself’ 6. Death and Rebirth in the Universal ‘Thing-in-Itself’ Part IV: Wallace Stevens, Pre-Socratic Philosophy, and Religion 7. Poetry and Religion: ‘Major Man’ as Poetic Saviour 8. The ‘Supreme Fiction’ as the Transvaluation of Religion with Poetry Part V: Wallace Stevens, Pre-Socratic Philosophy, Violence, and Mythology 9. The Violence of a Reduction of Metaphysics in Wallace Stevens’ Poetry 10. Stevens’ Goddess and the Mythological Nature of Being as a ‘Oneness’ Conclusion
Biography
Daniel Tompsett earned his PhD in English Literature at Queen Mary, University of London and is a Business Analysis Manager at a UK Law Firm.
"philosophically orientated Stevensians will learn a lot from the concerted attention to pre-Socratic thinking offered by Tompsett's intelligent and sophisticated book. His is a study whose unexpected emphasis is not just refreshing—it is something of a revelation."
"an exciting contribution that makes a strong, extended case for the relevance of pre-Socratic ontological thinking to Stevens' modernist brand of poetic philosophy."
- Bart Eeckhout, Editor, Wallace Stevens Journal
