Cities in Ruins: The Politics of Modern Poetics (Paperback) (ISBN-13: 9781557535719)

The attacks in New York on September 11, 2001, and in Madrid on March 11, 2004, provoked diverse political reactions, but the imminence of the ruins triggered a collective historical awakening. In Cities in Ruins, Cecilia Enjuto Rangel argues that the portrayal in poetry of the modern city as a disintegrated, ruined space is part of a critique of the visions of progress and the historical process of modernization that developed during the nineteenth century and the first half of the twentieth century. Enjuto Rangel's study investigates the virtually unexplored map of modern ruins in modern poetry. She interprets modern poetry on ruins as a critique of both capitalist definitions of progress and the devastating effects of modern warfare. Furthermore, she argues that the representation of ruins provokes a "historical awakening" that empowers the text, and the reader, with political and historical agency.

Author: Cecilia Enjuto Rangel
ISBN-10: 155753571X
ISBN-13: 9781557535719
Publisher: Purdue University Press
Language: English
Published: 11/15/2010
Pages: 376
Format: Paperback
Weight: 1.35lbs
Size: 8.90h x 6.00w x 1.00d

Review Citation(s):
Reference and Research Bk News 02/01/2011 pg. 225