DEDICATION
To my late father, who would have been exhilarated to see this effort, and whose love of
knowledge and learning has always inspired me.
ii
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
I am grateful to Dr. Elisabeth Däumer for her great interest in my work and her unstinting
assistance to me at every stage of my study. I also thank Dr. Christine Neufeld for her useful
comments and much-needed encouragement.
iii
ABSTRACT
This thesis studies Muriel Rukeyser‟s view of the relationship between technology and the body
by analyzing some of her poetry in her Collected Poems and her philosophy of poetry in her
book The Life of Poetry. The thesis also deals with the relationship between science and art;
Rukeyser thought of science and art as supplementing and complementing each other through
her idea of dynamism in nature and in artistic thought. In addition, my thesis discusses some
critical responses to Rukeyser‟s poetry and philosophy of art. The theories that form the basis of
my study are Rukeyser‟s idea of relational form and Julia Kristeva‟s theory of the chora stage.
My study reveals how Rukeyser conceived of both technology and the body as sustained by one
process of vitality and creativity, which is relational form. I will argue that Rukeyser‟s idea of a
dynamic human inner self, in which the body is brought into realistic and responsible contact
with its physical surroundings, including technology, relates to more recent thinking about the
relationship between art and science, as seen in Kristeva‟s idea of the chora stage, which
represents a source of dynamic creativity and connectivity that is apparent in the different aspects
of life, including the body and technology. I will also study how Rukeyser‟s idea of the body as a
source of dynamism and creativity anticipated Hélène Cixous‟s ideas of feminist writing.
iv
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Dedication………………………………………………………………………………...ii
Acknowledgments………………………………………………………………………..iii
Abstract…………………………………………………………………………………...iv
Introduction …………………………………………………………………………………1
Chapter 1: Critical Responses to Rukeyser‟s Poetry and Rukeyser‟s Philosophy of Reading
Poetry ………………………………………………………………………….14
Rukeyser and Proletarian Poetry ………………………………………………...15
Rukeyser‟s Theory of Criticism …………………………………………………28
Rukeyser‟s View of the „Resistances‟ to Poetry ………………………………...38
Chapter 2: Rukeyser‟s Philosophy of the Relationship between Science and Poetry ……..48
Science and Rukeyser‟s Poetic Mission ……………………………………….....50
Rukeyser‟s Philosophy of Relationship ………………………………………….55
Lewis Thomas‟s Ideas of Relationship in the Universe ………………………….63
Specialization as an Obstacle to Relational Knowledge ………………………....70
Willard Gibbs‟s Phase Rule and its Significance to Rukeyser …………………...74
Rukeyser‟s Poem “Gibbs” ………………………………………………………..82
S. T. Coleridge‟s Idea of Dynamic Process ……………………………………….87
The Place of Dynamic Science in Rukeyser‟s Poetry …………………………….93
Chapter 3: The Relationship between Technology and the Body in Rukeyser‟s Poetry ….100
Rukeyser and the Naturalist View of Bodies and Machines ……………………..102
Rukeyser and the Body-Machine Question in Futurism and Fascism …………....108
The Relationship between the Body and Technology in Rukeyser‟s
Theory of Flight ......................................................................................................118
v
Rukeyser‟s Idea of Body-Inspired Women‟s Writing ……………………………131
Rukeyser, Lawrence, and Julia Kristeva‟s Idea of the Chora ……………………138
Conclusion ………………………………………………………………………………..157
Works Cited……………………………………………………………………………….161
原文地址：
http://www.hongfu951.info/file/resource-detail.do?id=4c8fa089-2263-4d52-a761-bfb3a5c32fb6