''Hotel Lautréamont'' is a 1992 poetry collection by the American writer
John Ashbery
John Lawrence Ashbery (July 28, 1927 – September 3, 2017) was an American poet and art critic.
Ashbery is considered the most influential American poet of his time. Oxford University literary critic John Bayley wrote that Ashbery "sounded, in ...
. The title comes from the symbolist poet
Comte de Lautréamont
Comte de Lautréamont (; ) was the '' nom de plume'' of Isidore Lucien Ducasse (; 4 April 1846 – 24 November 1870), a French poet born in Uruguay. His only works, '' Les Chants de Maldoror'' and ''Poésies'', had a major influence on modern a ...
.
Reception
Barbara Everett of ''
The Independent
''The Independent'' is a British online newspaper. It was established in 1986 as a national morning printed paper. Nicknamed the ''Indy'', it began as a broadsheet and changed to tabloid format in 2003. The last printed edition was publis ...
'' described the language of the book as "dislocated, dehistoricised, only making meaning if treated as a purely verbal pleasure. Language used like this restricts itself to an excessively thin power of expression. At the precise point at which the reader might trust a poetic world or style, the poem changes gear." Everett continued: "The most intellectually classy of early Christian heresies was
Gnosticism
Gnosticism (from Ancient Greek language, Ancient Greek: , Romanization of Ancient Greek, romanized: ''gnōstikós'', Koine Greek: Help:IPA/Greek, nostiˈkos 'having knowledge') is a collection of religious ideas and systems that coalesced ...
, which denied the real existence of bodies, or their importance (if they existed):
Jesus
Jesus (AD 30 or 33), also referred to as Jesus Christ, Jesus of Nazareth, and many Names and titles of Jesus in the New Testament, other names and titles, was a 1st-century Jewish preacher and religious leader. He is the Jesus in Chris ...
may have been born, but he certainly didn't die. The post-modern feeling for language is similar: words may be written, but can't mean. The result in Ashbery's case is some interesting exercises du style. But real poems are being written in England, in Australia, the Caribbean and the US by at least a dozen English-speaking poets who are committed to a language that lives and dies."
See also
*
1992 in poetry
Nationality words link to articles with information on the nation's poetry or literature (for instance, Irish poetry, Irish or French poetry, France).
Events
*The Forward Prizes for Poetry in the U.K. are initiated and ''The Forward Book of Poet ...
*
American literature
American literature is literature written or produced in the United States of America and in the British colonies that preceded it. The American literary tradition is part of the broader tradition of English-language literature, but also ...
References
1992 poetry books
American poetry collections
Poetry by John Ashbery
{{Poetry-stub