The construction of place-based spatial knowledge in destructive poetics: An analysis of the work of Charles Olson, Andrea Zanzotto, Edward Dorn, and Gianni Celati based on the thought of Henri Lefebvre.

摘要

This dissertation examines the construction of place-based spatial knowledge in the destructive writings of American poet Charles Olson (1910–1970), Italian poet Andrea Zanzotto (1921– ), American poet Edward Dorn (1929–1999), and Italian writer Gianni Celati (1937– ). It is based on work by French theorist Henri Lefebvre and German philosopher Martin Heidegger, as well as on work by related, spatial thinkers, such as Edward Soja, David Harvey, Kent Ryden, Carl Sauer, Doreen Massey, Yi-Fu Tuan, and Gaston Bachelard. It analyzes how Olson, Zanzotto, Dorn, and Celati construct compatible if differing versions of spatial knowledge; reconnect notions of place and time; attain fluency with physical and mental constructs of place; and, map both concrete and abstract territories. In turn, the following areas associated with each of these four writers are discussed in detail: Olson's Gloucester, Massachusetts; Zanzotto's Pieve di Soligo and the Montello Woods, Veneto; Dorn's American West; and, Celati's Po River Valley. Particular attention is given to Olson's spaces of representation; Zanzotto's notion of “Gnessunlógo” (“Noplace”); Dorn's “super-local spaces”; and, Celati's affectionate, descriptive movement through space. Although the dissertation is centered on poetry, it also draws from other fields of study, and is interdisciplinary in nature. It investigates the intersections between postmodern poetry and regional landscape study, and emerges from the broad meeting of literature and geography. It takes much from ecocriticism; regional landscape study; fieldwork; comparative literature; and, recent developments in spatial theory in geography and cultural studies. It focuses on how destructive writers construct place-based, spatial knowledge through mental mapping and the hybridizing of poetic, cartographic, experiential, historic, and metaphoric knowledge of place. The dissertation also contains original translations from Italian to English of work by Zanzotto and Celati. Key texts discussed include: Olson's The Maximus Poems and The Special View of History; Zanzotto's Il Galateo in bosco (The woodland book of manners) and La Beltà (Beauty); Dorn's Gunslinger and The Collected Poems; Celati's Narratori delle pianure (Voices from the Plains) and Verso la foce (Towards the river mouth); and, Lefebvre's The Production of Space and Critique of Everyday Life.