Dickey, James - Joyce Carol Oates (essay date autumn 1974)

Joyce Carol Oates (essay date autumn 1974)

SOURCE: Oates, Joyce Carol. “Out of Stone into Flesh: The Imagination of James Dickey.” Modern Poetry Studies, 5, no. 2 (autumn 1974): 97-144.

[In the following excerpt from an essay, Oates traces Dickey's poetic development.]

                    Despair and exultation
Lie down together and thrash
In the hot grass, no blade moving …

—Dickey, “Turning Away”

A man cannot pay as much attention to himself as I do without living in Hell all the time.

—Dickey, Sorties

The remarkable poetic achievement of James Dickey is characterized by a restless concern with the poet's “personality” in its relationships to the world of nature and of experience. His work is rarely confessional in the sense of the term as we have come to know it, yet it is always personal—at times contemplative, at times dramatic....

[The entire page is 15526 words long]

Join eNotes

The above is a free excerpt. Get total access to this content with the:

eNotes Pass