Yes please, Richard, If and when you can lay your hands on it I'd find a
copy most interesting and instructive.
joanna
----- Original Message -----
From: "Richard Jeffrey Newman" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Thursday, October 06, 2005 10:33 PM
Subject: Re: snap
>>>I wonder if anyone has ever done some sort of study or
> theory-construction around this, namely the extent to which the *I* in a
> poem can be identified with the author<<
>
> I have always liked Sam Hammill's definition of the "I" in a poem, which I
> am paraphrasing here, since I am not where I can lay my hands on the book
> in
> which he did it: The "I" in a poem is the first person impersonal (or
> something like that). In other words, it is a first person speaker, but it
> is not autobiographical and, as such, is an invitation to someone other
> than
> the author to enter the poem and experience it as his or her own. Hammill
> goes on to say a good deal about the author's responsibility to and in
> that
> first person impersonal, but that I will not paraphrase. If someone is
> interested, though, I think I have somewhere, but not on this computer, a
> pdf of the essay in which he talks about this and I'll be happy to send
> it.
>
> Richard
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