‘The inner image of the verse is inseparable from the numberless changes of expression which flit across the face of the teller as he talks excitedly.’ From ‘Conversations about Dante’ in ‘The Selected Poems of Osip Mandelstam,’ trans Brown and Merwin.
This dynamic helps us understand how the luminous individual’ emerges in/from the text. The analytical kit includes discourses on the face and Desmond on ‘the intimate universal’ with its recognition of tacit dimensions of meaning stored and nourished in the flesh.
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Author: Tom D'Evelyn
Tom D'Evelyn is a private editor and writing tutor in Cranston RI and, thanks to the web, across the US and in the UK. He can be reached at tom.develyn@comcast.net. D'Evelyn has a PhD in Comparative Literature from UC Berkeley. Before retiring he held positions at The Christian Science Monitor, Harvard University Press, Boston University and Brown University. He ran a literary agency for ten years, publishing books by Leonard Nathan and Arthur Quinn, among others. Before moving to Portland OR he was managing editor at Single Island Press, Portsmouth NH. He blogs at http://tdevelyn.com and other sites.
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lyric investigations 