Abstract
This chapter reveals the utopian impulse and rhetoric of negation that underpin Susan Howe’s investigation of the historical past. Two of Howe’s works, Souls of the Labadie Tract and The Midnight, address the consequences of failed utopian social ideals. Central to each book is a visionary figure: Jean de Labadie is a seventeenth-century pastor whose religious beliefs inspire a utopian sect in Maryland in Souls of the Labadie Tract, and landscape designer, Frederick Law Olmsted envisions an ideal municipal park in Buffalo, New York, in The Midnight. Lagapa argues that, despite the collapse of these men’s plans, a utopian dynamic might be resuscitated from their failed projects, particularly if Howe’s poems are read properly—as a negative image of the promise of utopia.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Notes
- 1.
It should be noted that the dystopian turn of New York Central Terminal is not the building’s final legacy. In 1997, a nonprofit organization, the Central Terminal Restoration Corporation, took ownership of New York Central Terminal and began efforts to return the historical landmark to a vibrant state. The plan for the site is to create a center for new business and transportation and to secure a part of Buffalo’s cultural history through a multimillion dollar endowment.
- 2.
Zeami also approaches his explanation of Noh techniques by employing nondualistic principles and quoting Buddhist texts, like the Yuima Sutra, where “it says, ‘Good and bad are not two. The correct and the heretical are the same’” (138). For the connection between nondualism and negative theology, see J.P. Williams, Denying Divinity. Oxford: Oxford UP, 2000.
- 3.
The Gate, in fact, is the name of the theater where Mary Manning and Susan Howe, at different times in their careers, each performed.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2017 The Author(s)
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Lagapa, J. (2017). Our Message Was Electric: Susan Howe and the Resuscitation of Failed Utopian Projects. In: Negative Theology and Utopian Thought in Contemporary American Poetry. American Literature Readings in the 21st Century. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-55284-2_2
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-55284-2_2
Published:
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-319-55283-5
Online ISBN: 978-3-319-55284-2
eBook Packages: Literature, Cultural and Media StudiesLiterature, Cultural and Media Studies (R0)