William Waters
Boston University, World Languages and Literatures, Faculty Member
- Boston University, Modern Languages and Comparative Literature, Faculty Memberadd
Research Interests:
Rilkes Begriff der 'Welt', seine Aufnahme von 'Welt', die literarische Gestaltung und deren Rezeption in Rilkes Mit- und Nachwelt stehen inhaltlich im Zentrum dieses Aufsatzbandes. Er stellt in rund 50 Beitragen von... more
Rilkes Begriff der 'Welt', seine Aufnahme von 'Welt', die literarische Gestaltung und deren Rezeption in Rilkes Mit- und Nachwelt stehen inhaltlich im Zentrum dieses Aufsatzbandes. Er stellt in rund 50 Beitragen von internationalen Literaturwissenschaftlern und Rilke-Forschern die vielen Facetten in Leben und Werk des europaischen Dichters aus Prag vor und gibt somit nicht nur einen Eindruck von Rilkes Schaffen, sondern auch von seiner Bedeutung fur die Literatur- und Kulturgeschichte bis zur Gegenwart. Anlass der Publikation ist der Geburtstag von August Stahl, dessen literaturwissenschaftliches Arbeiten und personliches Engagement fur das Erschliessen, Verbreiten und Verstehen Rilkes - weit uber das Wirken als Prasident der Internationalen Rilke-Gesellschaft hinaus - von Rilke-Forschern, Rilke-Lesern und Rilke-Liebhabern anerkannt ist. Aus diesem Grunde beschliesst ein Verzeichnis der auf Rilke bezogenen Schriften von August Stahl den Sammelband, der viele Dimensio...
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
Publikationsansicht. 3685405. The grammar of the lyric mind : figures of pronoun and verb inRilke's Malte Laurids Brigge / (1985). Waters, William. ... Keywords, Rilke, Rainer Maria, 1875-1926.,Rilke, Rainer Maria, 1875-1926,... more
Publikationsansicht. 3685405. The grammar of the lyric mind : figures of pronoun and verb inRilke's Malte Laurids Brigge / (1985). Waters, William. ... Keywords, Rilke, Rainer Maria, 1875-1926.,Rilke, Rainer Maria, 1875-1926, Rilke, Rainer Maria, 1875-1926. Typ, text. Sprache, eng ...
Review of a book by John Hamilton.
Research Interests:
... POETIC ADDRESS AND INTIMATE READING: THE OFFERED HAND William Waters 6 Literary Imagination: The Review of the Association of Literary Scholars and Critics 2.2 (2000), pp. 188-220 1 Galway Kinnell, Selected Poems (Boston, 1982), p.... more
... POETIC ADDRESS AND INTIMATE READING: THE OFFERED HAND William Waters 6 Literary Imagination: The Review of the Association of Literary Scholars and Critics 2.2 (2000), pp. 188-220 1 Galway Kinnell, Selected Poems (Boston, 1982), p. 127. 6 ...
Apollo" which began the 1907 Neue Gedichte (SW 1: 481); it often has been taken to epitomize the several layers of meaning in Rilke's undertaking to write" Dinggedichte"-poems about things, often artworks, but also... more
Apollo" which began the 1907 Neue Gedichte (SW 1: 481); it often has been taken to epitomize the several layers of meaning in Rilke's undertaking to write" Dinggedichte"-poems about things, often artworks, but also poems that themselves seem dense, ...
Research Interests:
To whom does a poem speak? Do poems really communicate with those they address? Is reading poems like overhearing? Like intimate conversation? Like performing a script? William Waters pursues these questions by closely reading a selection... more
To whom does a poem speak? Do poems really communicate with those they address? Is reading poems like overhearing? Like intimate conversation? Like performing a script? William Waters pursues these questions by closely reading a selection of poems that say "you" to a human being: to the reader, to the beloved, or to the dead. In any account of reading lyric poetry, Waters argues, there will be places where the participant roles of speaker, intended hearer, and bystander melt together or away; these are moments of wonder.
Looking both at poetry's "you" and at how readers encounter it, Waters asserts that poetic address shows literature pressing for a close relation with those into whose hands it may fall. What is at stake for us as readers and critics is our ability to acknowledge the claims made on us by the works of art with which we engage. In second-person poems, in a poem's touch, we may come to see why poetry matters to us, and how we, in turn, come to feel answerable to it.
Poetry's Touch takes as a central thread the poetry of Rainer Maria Rilke, a writer whose work is unusually self-conscious about poetic address. The book also draws examples from a gamut of European and American poems, ranging from archaic Greek inscriptions to Keats, Dickinson, and Ashbery.
Looking both at poetry's "you" and at how readers encounter it, Waters asserts that poetic address shows literature pressing for a close relation with those into whose hands it may fall. What is at stake for us as readers and critics is our ability to acknowledge the claims made on us by the works of art with which we engage. In second-person poems, in a poem's touch, we may come to see why poetry matters to us, and how we, in turn, come to feel answerable to it.
Poetry's Touch takes as a central thread the poetry of Rainer Maria Rilke, a writer whose work is unusually self-conscious about poetic address. The book also draws examples from a gamut of European and American poems, ranging from archaic Greek inscriptions to Keats, Dickinson, and Ashbery.