A Close Reading of Gwendolyn Brooks’s Sonnet Sequence“Gay Chaps at the Bar:”Allusions,Conscious Discrepancies,and Spiritual Alchemy  

作　　者：Jon Woodson 

机构地区：[1]Howard University

出　　处：《Journal of Foreign Languages and Cultures》2017年第1期109-130,共22页外国语言与文化（英文）

摘　　要：Gwendolyn Brooks’s sonnet sequence,“Gay Chaps at the Bar”is written in compliance with the esoteric literary ideas of the followers of A.R.Orage.Thus each sonnet contains a verifiable intentional mistake,a series of literary allusions,and an esoteric idea.These mistakes have been previously undetected.Most of the allusions have been have been overlooked by critics.The sonnets are also written in the phonetic code used by alchemists.The material that Brooks drew on for her allusions consists of works of popular culture,and literary classics,so that there is nothing erudite about her references.On the other hand,the esoteric ideas are extremely obscure.This close reading is a severe departure from readings which have treated the poems as social protest and experiments in a so-called Afro-Modernist aesthetic.The new aesthetic of“objective literature”raises many questions about the nature of art,reading,and consciousness.

关 键 词：sonnet sequence Western esotericism war poems black soldiers experimental poetry ALCHEMY 

分 类 号：I712[文学—其他各国文学]