Based on Robert E.Park’s theoretical frame of social urban study,the“psychophysical mechanism”,urban poetics mainly researches the mutual relations between the physical and the moral organizations of a city in urba...Based on Robert E.Park’s theoretical frame of social urban study,the“psychophysical mechanism”,urban poetics mainly researches the mutual relations between the physical and the moral organizations of a city in urban poems,novels and dramas.This article considers John Updike as an urban poet since his poem collection Americana(2001)is a collection of urban poems.One of the representative poems,the sonnet“New York City”,depicts a despairing“separate nation”by presenting three typical physical cityscapes:television,beggars and skyscrapers.Each physical cityscape reveals its cultural value and social tradition of the city,and the psychological problems of the city dwellers.Tracing Updike’s personal urban experience and the poem’s intertextual space,this article explores his criticism on American big city:the alienated human relations,the anxiety of city life and the smallness of solipsism.His intention to parody John Milton’s Pandemonium in Paradise Lost,and to pay homage to Walt Whitman,reveals that this sonnet embodies rich connotations of urban poetics.展开更多
基金This paper is one of the research progress and outcomes of the programs“Urban Poetics of John Updike’s Poetry”(2016SJD750045)“Study on Multimodal Narrative in the 21st Century American Novels”(20BWW036),and“Study on Shakespeare’s City Play”(2021SJA1192).
文摘Based on Robert E.Park’s theoretical frame of social urban study,the“psychophysical mechanism”,urban poetics mainly researches the mutual relations between the physical and the moral organizations of a city in urban poems,novels and dramas.This article considers John Updike as an urban poet since his poem collection Americana(2001)is a collection of urban poems.One of the representative poems,the sonnet“New York City”,depicts a despairing“separate nation”by presenting three typical physical cityscapes:television,beggars and skyscrapers.Each physical cityscape reveals its cultural value and social tradition of the city,and the psychological problems of the city dwellers.Tracing Updike’s personal urban experience and the poem’s intertextual space,this article explores his criticism on American big city:the alienated human relations,the anxiety of city life and the smallness of solipsism.His intention to parody John Milton’s Pandemonium in Paradise Lost,and to pay homage to Walt Whitman,reveals that this sonnet embodies rich connotations of urban poetics.
