Note Dec 2023: For years now I have not bothered to keep "my" Academia.edu page up to date with publications. Among other things, the for-profit nature of the site troubles me. So: WYSIWYG. Also: somehow, more than a decade ago now, two Academia.edu pages got created under my name. I've been told they cannot be combined. Occasionally I do check this one. On the other some algorithm or well-meaning identity thief populates the page with a random sample of my publications (and perhaps others’ by mistake).
Poetry's Touch: On Lyric Address (introduction), 2003
To whom does a poem speak? Do poems really communicate with those they address? Is reading poems ... more To whom does a poem speak? Do poems really communicate with those they address? Is reading poems like overhearing? Like intimate conversation? Like performing a script? William Waters pursues these questions by closely reading a selection of poems that say "you" to a human being: to the reader, to the beloved, or to the dead. In any account of reading lyric poetry, Waters argues, there will be places where the participant roles of speaker, intended hearer, and bystander melt together or away; these are moments of wonder.
Looking both at poetry's "you" and at how readers encounter it, Waters asserts that poetic address shows literature pressing for a close relation with those into whose hands it may fall. What is at stake for us as readers and critics is our ability to acknowledge the claims made on us by the works of art with which we engage. In second-person poems, in a poem's touch, we may come to see why poetry matters to us, and how we, in turn, come to feel answerable to it.
Poetry's Touch takes as a central thread the poetry of Rainer Maria Rilke, a writer whose work is unusually self-conscious about poetic address. The book also draws examples from a gamut of European and American poems, ranging from archaic Greek inscriptions to Keats, Dickinson, and Ashbery.
Journal of Literary Theory (JLT) 2017, special issue on Lyric Theories
DOI 10.1515/jlt-2017-000... more Journal of Literary Theory (JLT) 2017, special issue on Lyric Theories DOI 10.1515/jlt-2017-0001
Coeditors (and coauthors of the Introduction): Claudia Hillebrandt, Sonja Klimek, Ralph Mueller, William Waters, Ruediger Zymner
In: "Gott" in der Dichtung Rainer Maria Rilkes, ed. Norbert Fischer. Felix Meiner Verlag 2014.
W... more In: "Gott" in der Dichtung Rainer Maria Rilkes, ed. Norbert Fischer. Felix Meiner Verlag 2014.
Wollte man nach Rilkes poetischem Gottesgedanken fragen, würde man dann an die Neuen Gedichte als einen wahrscheinlichen Ort für diese Untersuchung denken? Ja und nein. Die zwei Bände der Neuen Gedichte enthalten etwa fünfzehn explizit biblische Gedichte, zusammen mit einer Reihe von anderen, manche von ihnen gut bekannt, die Kathedralen, Engel, Heilige, christli-che Legenden, Mohammed und so weiter betreffen. Auf den ersten Blick also spielen religiöse Vorstellungen hier eine beträchtliche Rolle. Auf der anderen Seite bekräftigt die Rezeptionsgeschichte das Gefühl vieler heutiger Leser, daß der Schwerpunkt der Neuen Gedichte anderswo liegt.
Abstract Critics have warned readers against feeling personally addressed by the many commands in... more Abstract Critics have warned readers against feeling personally addressed by the many commands in Rilke's Duino Elegies and Sonnets to Orpheus. The essay argues, through readings of imperative sonnets, that such critics are misguided: the poems do seek a ...
POETIC ADDRESS AND INTIMATE READING: THE OFFERED HAND by William Waters. Originally in _Literary ... more POETIC ADDRESS AND INTIMATE READING: THE OFFERED HAND by William Waters. Originally in _Literary Imagination_ 2.2 (2000); reprinted in abridged form (approximately this version) in _Poetry and Dialogism: Hearing Over_, ed. Mara Scanlon & Chad Engbers. Palgrave Macmillan, 2014.
Apollo" which began the 1907 Neue Gedichte (SW 1: 481); it often has been taken to epitomize... more Apollo" which began the 1907 Neue Gedichte (SW 1: 481); it often has been taken to epitomize the several layers of meaning in Rilke's undertaking to write" Dinggedichte"-poems about things, often artworks, but also poems that themselves seem dense, ...
Poetry's Touch: On Lyric Address (introduction), 2003
To whom does a poem speak? Do poems really communicate with those they address? Is reading poems ... more To whom does a poem speak? Do poems really communicate with those they address? Is reading poems like overhearing? Like intimate conversation? Like performing a script? William Waters pursues these questions by closely reading a selection of poems that say "you" to a human being: to the reader, to the beloved, or to the dead. In any account of reading lyric poetry, Waters argues, there will be places where the participant roles of speaker, intended hearer, and bystander melt together or away; these are moments of wonder.
Looking both at poetry's "you" and at how readers encounter it, Waters asserts that poetic address shows literature pressing for a close relation with those into whose hands it may fall. What is at stake for us as readers and critics is our ability to acknowledge the claims made on us by the works of art with which we engage. In second-person poems, in a poem's touch, we may come to see why poetry matters to us, and how we, in turn, come to feel answerable to it.
Poetry's Touch takes as a central thread the poetry of Rainer Maria Rilke, a writer whose work is unusually self-conscious about poetic address. The book also draws examples from a gamut of European and American poems, ranging from archaic Greek inscriptions to Keats, Dickinson, and Ashbery.
Journal of Literary Theory (JLT) 2017, special issue on Lyric Theories
DOI 10.1515/jlt-2017-000... more Journal of Literary Theory (JLT) 2017, special issue on Lyric Theories DOI 10.1515/jlt-2017-0001
Coeditors (and coauthors of the Introduction): Claudia Hillebrandt, Sonja Klimek, Ralph Mueller, William Waters, Ruediger Zymner
In: "Gott" in der Dichtung Rainer Maria Rilkes, ed. Norbert Fischer. Felix Meiner Verlag 2014.
W... more In: "Gott" in der Dichtung Rainer Maria Rilkes, ed. Norbert Fischer. Felix Meiner Verlag 2014.
Wollte man nach Rilkes poetischem Gottesgedanken fragen, würde man dann an die Neuen Gedichte als einen wahrscheinlichen Ort für diese Untersuchung denken? Ja und nein. Die zwei Bände der Neuen Gedichte enthalten etwa fünfzehn explizit biblische Gedichte, zusammen mit einer Reihe von anderen, manche von ihnen gut bekannt, die Kathedralen, Engel, Heilige, christli-che Legenden, Mohammed und so weiter betreffen. Auf den ersten Blick also spielen religiöse Vorstellungen hier eine beträchtliche Rolle. Auf der anderen Seite bekräftigt die Rezeptionsgeschichte das Gefühl vieler heutiger Leser, daß der Schwerpunkt der Neuen Gedichte anderswo liegt.
Abstract Critics have warned readers against feeling personally addressed by the many commands in... more Abstract Critics have warned readers against feeling personally addressed by the many commands in Rilke's Duino Elegies and Sonnets to Orpheus. The essay argues, through readings of imperative sonnets, that such critics are misguided: the poems do seek a ...
POETIC ADDRESS AND INTIMATE READING: THE OFFERED HAND by William Waters. Originally in _Literary ... more POETIC ADDRESS AND INTIMATE READING: THE OFFERED HAND by William Waters. Originally in _Literary Imagination_ 2.2 (2000); reprinted in abridged form (approximately this version) in _Poetry and Dialogism: Hearing Over_, ed. Mara Scanlon & Chad Engbers. Palgrave Macmillan, 2014.
Apollo" which began the 1907 Neue Gedichte (SW 1: 481); it often has been taken to epitomize... more Apollo" which began the 1907 Neue Gedichte (SW 1: 481); it often has been taken to epitomize the several layers of meaning in Rilke's undertaking to write" Dinggedichte"-poems about things, often artworks, but also poems that themselves seem dense, ...
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Looking both at poetry's "you" and at how readers encounter it, Waters asserts that poetic address shows literature pressing for a close relation with those into whose hands it may fall. What is at stake for us as readers and critics is our ability to acknowledge the claims made on us by the works of art with which we engage. In second-person poems, in a poem's touch, we may come to see why poetry matters to us, and how we, in turn, come to feel answerable to it.
Poetry's Touch takes as a central thread the poetry of Rainer Maria Rilke, a writer whose work is unusually self-conscious about poetic address. The book also draws examples from a gamut of European and American poems, ranging from archaic Greek inscriptions to Keats, Dickinson, and Ashbery.
DOI 10.1515/jlt-2017-0001
Coeditors (and coauthors of the Introduction): Claudia Hillebrandt, Sonja Klimek, Ralph Mueller, William Waters, Ruediger Zymner
Wollte man nach Rilkes poetischem Gottesgedanken fragen, würde man dann an die Neuen Gedichte als einen wahrscheinlichen Ort für diese Untersuchung denken? Ja und nein. Die zwei Bände der Neuen Gedichte enthalten etwa fünfzehn explizit biblische Gedichte, zusammen mit einer Reihe von anderen, manche von ihnen gut bekannt, die Kathedralen, Engel, Heilige, christli-che Legenden, Mohammed und so weiter betreffen. Auf den ersten Blick also spielen religiöse Vorstellungen hier eine beträchtliche Rolle. Auf der anderen Seite bekräftigt die Rezeptionsgeschichte das Gefühl vieler heutiger Leser, daß der Schwerpunkt der Neuen Gedichte anderswo liegt.
Looking both at poetry's "you" and at how readers encounter it, Waters asserts that poetic address shows literature pressing for a close relation with those into whose hands it may fall. What is at stake for us as readers and critics is our ability to acknowledge the claims made on us by the works of art with which we engage. In second-person poems, in a poem's touch, we may come to see why poetry matters to us, and how we, in turn, come to feel answerable to it.
Poetry's Touch takes as a central thread the poetry of Rainer Maria Rilke, a writer whose work is unusually self-conscious about poetic address. The book also draws examples from a gamut of European and American poems, ranging from archaic Greek inscriptions to Keats, Dickinson, and Ashbery.
DOI 10.1515/jlt-2017-0001
Coeditors (and coauthors of the Introduction): Claudia Hillebrandt, Sonja Klimek, Ralph Mueller, William Waters, Ruediger Zymner
Wollte man nach Rilkes poetischem Gottesgedanken fragen, würde man dann an die Neuen Gedichte als einen wahrscheinlichen Ort für diese Untersuchung denken? Ja und nein. Die zwei Bände der Neuen Gedichte enthalten etwa fünfzehn explizit biblische Gedichte, zusammen mit einer Reihe von anderen, manche von ihnen gut bekannt, die Kathedralen, Engel, Heilige, christli-che Legenden, Mohammed und so weiter betreffen. Auf den ersten Blick also spielen religiöse Vorstellungen hier eine beträchtliche Rolle. Auf der anderen Seite bekräftigt die Rezeptionsgeschichte das Gefühl vieler heutiger Leser, daß der Schwerpunkt der Neuen Gedichte anderswo liegt.