This edited volume seeks to draw the reader toward unconventional networks and the connections found in ancient Greek and Roman literature, as well as the poetic traditions developed in the Black Americas. Subdivided into three parts, the chapters combine studies of poetics in ancient and modern contexts, exploring subversions of the canonical and formal resistances to the hegemony of textual order. ‘Radical formalism’ is the term given to strategies for defamiliarising – revitalizing while disrupting and unsettling – modes of formalistic reading practiced in deconstructionism, microformalism and psychoanalysis.
This collection will not only provide new, provocative insights into a corpus of texts that has exerted a lasting impact on modern literature and philosophy, but will also challenge current interpretive methods, reconceptualizing the very practice of reading and experiencing form, poetics, language, sound, temporalities and textuality.