Seunghyun Shin

After ecocriticism, the study of literature that discusses environmental concerns and the ways it treats nature, established itself as a school of literary criticism in the 1990s, ecocritics have been arguing that postmodernism underappreciated the relationship between poetry and the reality it seeks to represent at a time of overwhelming environmental issues. This research contradicts such arguments through reading the works of a modern American poet, A.R. Ammons. The main goal is to illuminate Ammons’ commitment to pragmatic poetry that aims at cultural shifts. In illuminating the pragmatic poetics in Ammons’ poems, the research will counter the ecocritical assertions about the relationship between postmodern poetry and literary criticism by considering his poetry as a medium for revitalizing language and ideology. To make this argument, the research will first explore what American pragmatism is and how pragmatists such as Ralph Waldo Emerson and William James have influenced poets to establish ground for postmodern poetry. The research will then discuss how Ammons extends the pragmatic tradition in his poetry and how it ultimately provides a counterpoint to the ecocritical commentary on the relationship between postmodern poetry and postmodernist literary theory. In other words, the research analyzes Ammons’ poems that revitalizes language and ideology through extending the pragmatic practice of writing poetry.

Seunghyun Shin is a first-year M.A. student in the Department of English at the University of Vermont. His research interests include 19th and 20th century Anglo-American literature, modernist poetry, and contemporary poetry. He is currently working on the thesis about modernist poet, William Carlos Williams. He holds a B.A. (English) from the University at Albany, The State University of New York.