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Article: Elegy and Paradox: Testing the Conventions.
- Article from:
- Criticism
- Article date:
- June 22, 1996
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 1996 Wayne State University Press. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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W. David Shaw's new book is an ambitious meditation on the genre of elegy, the problems of critical method, and the history of Western culture. "Since death is not an experience inside life, but an event that takes place on its boundary" (5), Shaw posits an inherent connection between elegiac representation and "paradox" (for him a contradiction which is resolvable). He can then present a history of the genre by sketching a history of its paradoxes. So he does, charting a progression that moves through several discrete stages. The stages arise as the elegist progressively adapts the conventions of the genre to his or her sense of mortal crisis.
Shaw ...