Reading the city: Edwin Morgan’s “Glasgow Sonnets” as a contemporary urban sonnet sequence

• Authors: Słąwomir Wącior

Title variants

PL

Odczytywanie miasta – ‘Glasgow Sonnets’ Edwina Morgana jako współczesny cykl sonetów miejskich

• Languages of publication: EN

Abstracts

EN

This essay is an analytical study of a ten-poem sequence of sonnets written by Morgan in the seventies of the twentieth century. In it the late Scottish Makar creates a sophisticated poetic map of the city’s dynamic architectonic and sociological mutations by means of sophisticated language patterns. The poetic strategies used by Morgan in this cycle of sonnets aim at rendering the social and political problems of a modern city through equally advanced and amorphous linguistic operations. A detailed analysis and interpretation of all ten sonnets creates a poetic map of Glasgow with its characteristic and randomly chosen places, populated by people who find it difficult to accommodate there. Morgan’s sequence of sonnets becomes a refined and compound structure which, while relying on traditional motifs and patterns of Renaissance sonnets, transforms most of them and creates their modern unconventional lyrical equivalents.

PL

Artykuł niniejszy to studium sekwencji dziesięciu sonetów napisanych przez szkockiego poetę narodowego Edwina Morgana na początku lat siedemdziesiątych XX wieku. W artykule tym autor próbuje prześledzić sposoby odwzorowania współczesnej rzeczywistości szkockiej metropolii w końcu dwudziestego wieku za pomocą kanonicznej formy sonetu, stworzonej w trzynastym wieku głównie do wyrażania uczuć wysokich takich jak miłość. Szczegółowa analiza wszystkich dziesięciu wierszy cyklu potwierdza oryginalną tezę, iż złożoność uwarunkowań ekonomicznych, społecznych i politycznych w jakich funkcjonuje współczesny Glasgow, determinuje użycie równie skomplikowanej materii językowej do jego właściwego literackiego odwzorowania.

Keywords

EN

Poetics; sonnet; British literature; Scotland; Edwin Morgan; “Glasgow Sonnets”

PL

poetyka; sonet; literatura brytyjska; Szkocja; Edwin Morgan; ‘Glasgow Sonnets’

• Publisher: Katolicki Uniwersytet Lubelski Jana Pawła II. Towarzystwo Naukowe KUL
• Journal: Roczniki Humanistyczne
• Year: 2015
• Volume: 63
• Issue: 11: Anglica
• Pages: 291-307

Contributors

author

Słąwomir Wącior

• Institute of English Studies at the John Paul II Catholic University of Lublin

References

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Identifiers

DOI

10.18290/rh.2015.63.11-18