New Formalisms and Literary Theory

New Formalisms and Literary Theory examines the political motivations of a return to formalism. Together with our contributors, we want to propose and challenge the conception of New Formalism as an extension of contextual readings and as a 'mere' return to aesthetic readings. The essays gathered here encourage reflection upon New Formalism's points of intersection with other theoretical approaches and demand a reinstatement of form as the critic's central focus, form, that is, as it reflects a culture's creative imagination and historicizes itself within and against a politically charged background.

Verena Theile is Assistant Professor of English at North Dakota State University, USA where she teaches early modern literature and critical theory. She is co-editor of Reclaiming Home, Remembering Motherhood, Redefining History (CSP, 2009) and Staging the Superstitions of Early Modern Europe (Ashgate, 2013).

Linda Tredennick is an Associate Professor in the departments of English and Women and Gender Studies at Gonzaga University in Spokane, USA. She is currently working on a book project, tentatively titled Degenerate Journeys: Protestantism and Early Modern Narrative, which explores the intersection of Protestant theology and narrative in early modern England.

List of Illustrations
Foreword; Heather Dubrow
Acknowledgements
Contributor Biographies
Introduction: New Formalism(s), A Prologue; Verena Theile
PART I: THEORY
1. Toward a New Formalism: The Intrinsic and Related Problems in Theory and Criticism; Fredric V. Bogel
2. Doing Genre; Group Phi
PART II: PRACTICE
3. Inventing an Ancestor: The Scholar-Poet and the Sonnet; Edward Brunner
4. From Close Reading to Cross Reading: Sacco-Vanzetti Poetry and the Politics of New Formalism; Bartholomew Brinkman
5. Re-Reading for Forms in Sir Philip Sidney's Defence of Poesie; Corey McEleney and Jacqueline Wernimont
6. Collecting Body Parts in Leonardo's Cave: Vasari's Lives of the Artists and the Erotics of Obscene Connoisseurship; Harry Berger Jr
7. Form as a Pattern of Thinking in Watchmen; Karin Kukkonen
PART III: PEDAGOGY
8. Reading Like a Writer: A Creative Writer's Approach to New Formalism; Kelcey Parker
9. Punk Bodies, Jorie Graham, and "The Draft Itself": Notes Toward a Lyric Formalism; Cynthia Nichols
10. One Another's Hermitage: New Formalist Pedagogy; Linda Tredennick
Bibliography
Index