Collected Prose by Charles Olson (PDF)

Description

The prose writings of Charles Olson (1910–1970) have had a far-reaching and continuing impact on post-World War II American poetics. Olson’s theories, which made explicit the principles of his own poetics and those of the Black Mountain poets, were instrumental in defining the sense of the postmodern in poetry and form the basis of most postwar free verse.The Collected Prose brings together in one volume the works published for the most part between 1946 and 1969, many of which are now out of print. A valuable companion to editions of Olson’s poetry, the book backgrounds the poetics, preoccupations, and fascinations that underpin his great poems. Included are Call Me Ishmael, a classic of American literary criticism; the influential essays “Projective Verse” and “Human Universe”; and essays, book reviews, and Olson’s notes on his studies. In these pieces one can trace the development of his new science of man, called “muthologos,” a radical mix of myth and phenomenology that Olson offered in opposition to the mechanistic discourse and rationalizing policy he associated with America’s recent wars in Europe and Asia.Editors Donald Allen and Benjamin Friedlander offer helpful annotations throughout, and poet Robert Creeley, who enjoyed a long and mutually influential relationship with Olson, provides the book’s introduction.

User’s Reviews

Reviews from Amazon users which were colected at the time this book was published on the website:

⭐Charles Olson is THE giant of post-war American poetry. Massive in every way – 6 foot 7 & a half inches tall, enormously influential as writer & teacher, a voracious reader, intense visionary, a mind second to none & a heart as big as the planet, his poetry & prose should be on every curriculum & syllabus in every school & university on the planet. What is so exciting about his work is that it proposes not just a new way of looking at things, but a new & vital way of engaging with life & destiny (ENERGY & INSTANT is how he put it) – “the poet is the only pedagogue left, to be trusted” – he teaches “man, that participant thing, to take up, straight, nature’s, live nature’s force”. As you can see his prose is difficult & takes time to get used to – best to read it aloud & let its energy transform you as much as its meaning: energy transferral is how Olson saw communication & to receive energy you must first give it, & to bring energy from the page you must first bring it into the air in the act of speech: language for Olson was as much physical as mental – “I believe in God as fully physical” – & when you read Olson you feel yourself in the grip of energy – what he called the WILL TO COHERE – THE PROJECTIVE ACT – the very grip of LIFE, which flowed thru him with such intensity. His style is crucial to his message – FORM IS NEVER MORE THAN AN EXTENSION OF CONTENT – which brings me to my only quibble with this book (& it’s a major one) – its design. Olson was a real stickler for design – layout & typefaces were crucially important to him because they all contributed to the impact of the page on the reader, which is why I cannot understand the reason for the cool (the last word you’d ever call Olson – he was too hot even to get close to), sans serif, bland layout of the pages in this book. Olson often capitalises phrases – like he’s shouting them at you – here they’re barely a whisper. Is all I can think is that the book was designed by someone more familiar with fashion than with the contents – a big mistake I’m afraid because a lot of the power is lost. Anyway, that said, it is all here – Call Me Ishmael, Human Universe, Additional Prose & other snippets, & the photo on the cover is wonderful. As I see it, Olson’s big mistake was not living a long enough life – not completing his work – not actually having the intelligence to see & feel his life as a complete entity – not actually having the heart (as Spinoza had) to realise that ENERGY & INSTANT are in fact, in essence, the same, & that if one lives a responsible life & looks after ones health because certain things can only be learnt at a certain age & one must live that long at least, then time is consumed & one comes to something real & godly which Olson never managed, despite the promise of the final poems. The archaeologist of morning died TOO young & I miss him.

⭐Agree with Irish — big mistake to lose the punctuation and spacing. As big as it would be with Cummings or Williams. I was surprised at Ishmael — the power comes from watching the mind work out issues on the page, shown in the rhetoric and the spacing / syntax. Good to have the arguments, annoying to miss the power and intent. This is, alas, only half a book.

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