Investigating Poetry’s Well-Made Surprises
Major
English – Literature
Submission Type
Oral Presentation
Area of Study or Work
English-Literature
Expected Graduation Date
2023
Location
CNS E103 2.3 Re-Storying: Surprise, Environment, and Self
Start Date
4-15-2023 10:30 AM
End Date
4-15-2023 11:30 AM
Abstract
In Elements of Surprise (Harvard, 2018), Vera Tobin explores a phenomenon she calls the “well-made surprise” in fiction and film. A “well-made surprise” is one that surprises but that also offers “a flash reinterpretation of events” and instills in the reader a “feeling that the evidence for this interpretation was there all along” (Tobin 2). This type of surprise feels–amazingly–both shocking and deeply right. Tobin takes a cognitive approach to how these surprises are created in narrative, suggesting a number of ways that authors can take advantage of cognition to create their “well-made surprises,” including, but certainly not limited to, shifting the frame from which the viewer/reader is seeing/reading; burying important information so that it is likely to be overlooked; having a trusted character give misinformation. In my presentation, I will apply Tobin’s ideas to poetry. While surprise in poetry is largely understudied, some poets and critics have recently praised a phenomena which sounds extremely akin to the well-made surprise. In The Resistance to Poetry, James Longenbach celebrates “the place where the poem breaks open, releasing an emotion that is both unpredictable and, at least in retrospect, logical.” In his book Why Poetry Matthew Zapruder calls for poems that create a “movement of the mind that is surprising but also true.” I will use Tobin’s cognitive approach to examine a range of poems, and, in so doing, contribute new insights to the conversation about surprise-making in poetry. I will assess the extent to which Tobin’s approach is useful to the analysis of poetry, noting both limitations and opportunities. But in the end I will suggest that Tobin’s approach helps to put greater emphasis on aspects of the construction of poems often overlooked or not often discussed in conversations about poetry.
Investigating Poetry’s Well-Made Surprises
CNS E103 2.3 Re-Storying: Surprise, Environment, and Self
In Elements of Surprise (Harvard, 2018), Vera Tobin explores a phenomenon she calls the “well-made surprise” in fiction and film. A “well-made surprise” is one that surprises but that also offers “a flash reinterpretation of events” and instills in the reader a “feeling that the evidence for this interpretation was there all along” (Tobin 2). This type of surprise feels–amazingly–both shocking and deeply right. Tobin takes a cognitive approach to how these surprises are created in narrative, suggesting a number of ways that authors can take advantage of cognition to create their “well-made surprises,” including, but certainly not limited to, shifting the frame from which the viewer/reader is seeing/reading; burying important information so that it is likely to be overlooked; having a trusted character give misinformation. In my presentation, I will apply Tobin’s ideas to poetry. While surprise in poetry is largely understudied, some poets and critics have recently praised a phenomena which sounds extremely akin to the well-made surprise. In The Resistance to Poetry, James Longenbach celebrates “the place where the poem breaks open, releasing an emotion that is both unpredictable and, at least in retrospect, logical.” In his book Why Poetry Matthew Zapruder calls for poems that create a “movement of the mind that is surprising but also true.” I will use Tobin’s cognitive approach to examine a range of poems, and, in so doing, contribute new insights to the conversation about surprise-making in poetry. I will assess the extent to which Tobin’s approach is useful to the analysis of poetry, noting both limitations and opportunities. But in the end I will suggest that Tobin’s approach helps to put greater emphasis on aspects of the construction of poems often overlooked or not often discussed in conversations about poetry.