Proofs and Theories

by Louise Glück

Book Overview

Winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature

Proofs and Theories, winner of the PEN/Martha Albrand Award for First Non-Fiction, is an illuminating collection of essays by Louise Gl ck, one of this country's most brilliant poets.

Like her poems, the prose of Gl ck, who won the Pulitzer Prize for poetry in 1993 for The Wild Iris, is compressed, fastidious, fierce, alert, and absolutely unconsoled. The force...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0880014423
• ISBN13: 9780880014427
• Release Date: December 1995
• Publisher: Ecco Press
• Length: 160 Pages
• Weight: 0.54 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.4" x 6.0" x 9.1"

Customer Reviews

A Necessary Medicine

Taken in sum, Proofs & Theories serves as a place to begin assessing the shortfalls and liabilities of contemporary poetry. She explores such pernicious problems as the emphasis on "sincerity" as opposed to authenticity, the valorizing of obsession as "courage" in the critical lexicon, the promulgation of the subjective, and, as she writes in "Invitation and Exclusion," "the proprietary obsessiveness of much contemporary poetry which stakes out territorial claims based on personal history: my father, my pain, my persistent memory." Of these, the notion of "sincerity," of telling the truth--or at least seeming to--perhaps most pervades discussion of contemporary poetry; one strives to affect a sincere tone, to modulate one's voice such that the sincerity cannot be called into question. In "Against Sincerity," Glück notes the "gap between truth and actuality" and argues, "The artist's task...involves the transformation of the actual to the true." And, further, that "the ability to achieve such transformations...depends on conscious willingness to distinguish truth from honesty or sincerity." Equally "unnerv[ing]" is "the thought that authenticity, in the poem, is not produced by sincerity." Here, she posits a careful distinction; that which leaves the after-taste of authenticity--that which strikes us as credible, reliable, as true--may not be voiced in the saccharine tones of excessive sincerity.

brilliant poet, brilliant brilliant essayist

Louise Gluck is a fantastic unique thinker & these essays on poetry are always luminously brilliant. Her thoughts on poetry are great to read for anyone with serious interest in poetry & the experience of being a writer.

Education of the Prose Writer: Lessons from Louise Glück

"The fundamental experience of the writer is helplessness," declares Louise Glück in the opening sentence of the first essay in _Proofs & Theories_. Although the type of helplessness Glück proceeds to describe differs from the sense of weakness with which a prose writer might attempt to review a book of poetry, the words nonetheless create a bridge between the poet-essayist and her reader. They ease the tension, the anxiety. The education begins.Glück's essays remind the prose writer that all "reviews" may share certain features. Simple titles that target the subject ("On T.S. Eliot; "On Stanley Kunitz") work well; so, too, may titles that promise treatment of an elusive yet alluring theme: ("The Forbidden"; "Invitation and Exclusion"). On the whole, _Proofs & Theories_ also supports the notion that a review need not be long. Glück notes that most of her poet-contemporaries "are interested in length: they want to write long lines, long stanzas, long poems"; one might add that a number of literary reviewers are interested in writing long reviews, and such pieces are not always necessary. Finally, the essays convey a general impression that the _substance_ of a piece of literature is equally important (if not more so) than its _style_.This last point is crucial for a prose writer approaching the task of reviewing poetry. Louise Glück's essays reveal preoccupations shared by prose writers--by this prose writer, anyway. Themes. Tone. Voice. It's perfectly all right, _Proofs & Theories_ tells the prose writer, to discuss poetry in these terms. One need not try to dazzle at first meeting with "metonymy" and "synecdoche," with "blank verse" and "internal rhyme." So don't be scared off.It would, therefore, be acceptable to write an essay titled "On Louise Glück." To choose a theme from _Meadowlands_ or another of Glück's own works, to write about. Or to focus on the poet's voice in selected poems from one of her collections.It might even be permissible to bring one's own experience of reading into the review. Thus Glück might learn of the moments when _she_ affected a reader, perhaps not to the extent that her own "encounter with [Wallace] Stevens was shattering." But she would see that her poet's presence as "human voice...a companion spirit" made a difference, in the moment of reading, and beyond.And she would realize, if she doesn't already, that _Proofs & Theories_ provides an excellent education for anyone--prose writer or poet--seeking lessons into the craft of literary reviewing.

interesting

Louise Gluck is a master poet, & it's great to be able to read such a straightforward explanation of her thoughts on some of the art.

a masterly exposition of the craft of a poet

Louis Gluck writes brilliant poems which meander around the serious issues of existence ,life ,love ,alienation ,separation,memories and dreams.This is a prose exposition of a collection of her essays which in a way talk of the methods of her craft and give her thoughts on tangible topics such as a critique of the works of T.S.Eliot and more abstract ideas such as the need for brevity in poetry.In another sense these prose meditations are in fact an adjunt to her poems and are meaningful in their own right.From apparently nowhere come profound ideas ,i quote"When you read anything worth remembering,you liberate a human voice;you release into the world again a companion spirit".Louise Gluck is herself a voice well worth listening to ,a contemporary philosopher who can address the important issues fearlessly and with clarity of thought .A gem of a book don't miss it.