Robert Duncan

The Collected Early Poems and Plays

Robert Duncan, Peter Quartermain

• Publisher: University of California Press
• Year: 2012
• Print ISBN: 9780520324855
• eBook ISBN: 9780520953628
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: North American Literary Criticism
• Index: Literature

A landmark in the publication of twentieth-century American poetry, this first volume of the long-awaited collected poetry, non-critical prose, and plays of Robert Duncan gathers all of Duncan's books and magazine publications up to and including Letters: Poems 1953–1956. Deftly edited, it thoroughly documents the first phase of Duncan's distinguished life in writing, making it possible to trace the poet's development as he approaches the brilliant work of his middle period. This volume includes the celebrated works Medieval Scenes and The Venice Poem, all of Duncan's long unavailable major ventures into drama, his extensive "imitations" of Gertrude Stein, and the remarkable poems written in Majorca as responses to a series of collaged paste-ups by Duncan's life-long partner, the painter Jess. Books appear in chronological order of publication, with uncollected periodical and other publications arranged chronologically, following each book. The introduction includes a biographical commentary on Duncan's early life and works, and clears an initial path through the textual complexities of his early writing. Notes offer brief commentaries on each book and on many of the poems. The volume to follow, The Collected Later Poetry and Plays, will include The Opening of the Field (1960), Roots and Branches (1964), Bending the Bow (1968), Ground Work (1984), and Ground Work II (1987).

Table of contents

• Cover
• Contents
• Preface
• Introduction: Disturbing Poetics
• Acknowledgments
• The Years As Catches: Early Poems 1939–1945
• Heavenly City, Earthly City
• Uncollected Work 1933–1947
• Medieval Scenes
• Poems 1948–1949
• Uncollected Work 1948–1951
• Fragments of a Disorderd Devotion
• Caesar's Gate: Poems 1949–1950
• A Book of Resemblances: Poems 1950–1953
• Names of People: Stein Imitations from 1952
• Play Time Pseudo Stein: From the Laboratory Records Notebook 1953
• Writing Writing
• Uncollected Work 1952–1956
• The Cat and the Blackbird
• Faust Foutu: A Comic Masque
• Medea at Kolchis: The Maiden Head
• Letters: Poems mcmliii–mcmlvi
• Appendix 1. Tables of Contents
• Appendix 2. Jacket Blurb to The First Decade
• Appendix 3. Preface (1972) to Caesar's Gate: Poems 1949–50
• Notes
• Selected Bibliography
• Index of Titles and First Lines