Date of Award
2018
Document Type
Thesis
Degree Name
Bachelors
Department
Humanities
First Advisor
Zamsky, Robert
Area of Concentration
Humanities
Abstract
The lyric voice has been historically used as a stand-in for the internal voice. Two poets, Claudia Rankine and John Taggart, engage this narrative of the lyric voice in a way that calls into question the sources of individual voice. They accomplish this reimagining of the voice through authority inherent in the vocal aspect in poetry. For Rankine, this can be seen in her two American lyrics Don’t Let Me Be Lonely (2004) and Citizen (2014). Rankine exploits the conventions of speech we take for granted to unveil the sources of the voice. For Taggart, his use of the voice in his middle period from 1981 to 2004 is meant to further veil the voice. The conception of lyric authority present in Robert Von Hallberg’s book Lyric Powers (1999) and the conception of voice in Mladen Dolar’s A Voice and Nothing More (2006) are used in this thesis to approach the individual authorities present in Taggart and Rankine.
Recommended Citation
Keever, Azia, "Beyond Words: Poetic Authority and Voice in the Works of Claudia Rankine and John Taggart" (2018). Theses & ETDs. 5542.
https://digitalcommons.ncf.edu/theses_etds/5542