Confessional poet John Berryman (1914 – 1972) is best remembered as the author of 77 DREAM SONGS (1964), HIS TOY, HIS DREAM HIS REST (1968), and THE DREAM SONGS (1969). These books comprise the total 385 Dream Songs – loosely structured, 18-line (give or take) poems – that have been the subject of so much controversy since their publication.
Although I get to John Berryman’s use of “literary blackface” in another video, it’s important to put such arguments into context: namely, who ARE John Berryman’s characters, anyway, and what are some clues for better understanding how the poems work? In this video, we consider John Berryman’s life, the pitfalls of using (and not using) biographical details in literary criticism, then define a strategy to tackle the first Dream Song.
Timestamps:
0:00 – Some details of John Berryman’s life
38:46 – Analyzing Dream Song #1- structuring the rest?
Twitter: @automachination
Original NotYourLiberal stream: [ Ссылка ]
Remembering John Berryman In His Centennial Year (Fall 2014): [ Ссылка ]
Tags: #JohnBerryman, #DreamSongs, #Confessional, #poetry, #criticism, #notyourliberal
