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The Unsaid

Hermetic Poetry Between Hermeneutics and Deconstruction

Karl Simms author

Format:Hardback

Publisher:Rowman & Littlefield International

Publishing:10th Jul '25

£85.00

This title is due to be published on 10th July, and will be despatched as soon as possible.

The Unsaid cover

Hermetic poetry is poetry which contains aporias, or gaps in reference, which frustrate a conventional search for meaning – their meaning lies in what is 'unsaid'. Many readers find such poetry obscure or difficult, since what is left unsaid is, typically, what the poem is 'about'. Hermetic poems are often, but not necessarily, minimalistic: this book, however, studies hermeticism in poetry, rather than merely assuming that hermetic poetry is a separate, self-contained genre, and so also finds hermetic moments or interludes in longer works. To this end the book is part historical overview, part close textual analysis, of poems which exhibit this phenomenon, from their origins in Renaissance sonnet cycles to contemporary popular songs. In this lucid account, Karl Simms deploys a radical hermeneutics – mediating between the hermeneutics of Gadamer and the deconstruction of Derrida, and between philosophical theory and literary critical practice – to analyse hermetic poetry. In so doing he finds hermetic poetry to be the poetry that most authentically speaks the truth of being to mankind.

ISBN: 9781783488667

Dimensions: unknown

Weight: unknown

176 pages