Michael Robbins

“Quarrels with Ourselves” argues, in the wake of the proliferation of “language-centered” poetries of “non-selves,” that the living, feeling self quarreling with itself provides a formal resolution to dilemmas that have plagued the poetic subject since the heyday of confessional verse. This study proposes that in its grappling with questions of intentionality, affect, political engagement, style, and poetic speaking, the poetic self is not a figure of solipsistic self-regard, but an allegory for larger social and moral problems of responsibility and justice, shame and authority.