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The “Onanism of Poetry”

The “Onanism of Poetry” AbstractLyric is onanistic: masturbation is the latent content of lyric poetry. This article counters queer theory with a turn to onanist theory, pointing out the centrality of masturbation to the work of Jacques Derrida, and suggesting that rather than consider masturbation the supplement to sex, we might consider the opposite. Modern man (the gendering is deliberate) has, according to Derrida, been mistaken in his metaphysics by a deluded fidelity to presence, an ontological error to which he has been attached as though to a lover; instead, modern man is guiltily onanistic. This article argues that the apostrophic intimacies of lyric and the longings held therein are masturbatory. To do so it reads Rob Halpern's Music for Porn as a deconstructive reading of Walt Whitman's Civil War poetry. http://www.deepdyve.com/assets/images/DeepDyve-Logo-lg.png Angelaki: Journal of Theoretical Humanities Taylor & Francis

The “Onanism of Poetry”

Ladkin, Sam
Angelaki: Journal of Theoretical Humanities , Volume 20 (4): 26 – Oct 2, 2015
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The “Onanism of Poetry”

Abstract

AbstractLyric is onanistic: masturbation is the latent content of lyric poetry. This article counters queer theory with a turn to onanist theory, pointing out the centrality of masturbation to the work of Jacques Derrida, and suggesting that rather than consider masturbation the supplement to sex, we might consider the opposite. Modern man (the gendering is deliberate) has, according to Derrida, been mistaken in his metaphysics by a deluded fidelity to presence, an ontological error to which...
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Publisher
Taylor & Francis
Copyright
© 2015 Taylor & Francis
ISSN
1469-2899
eISSN
0969-725X
DOI
10.1080/0969725X.2015.1096638
Publisher site
See Article on Publisher Site

Abstract

AbstractLyric is onanistic: masturbation is the latent content of lyric poetry. This article counters queer theory with a turn to onanist theory, pointing out the centrality of masturbation to the work of Jacques Derrida, and suggesting that rather than consider masturbation the supplement to sex, we might consider the opposite. Modern man (the gendering is deliberate) has, according to Derrida, been mistaken in his metaphysics by a deluded fidelity to presence, an ontological error to which he has been attached as though to a lover; instead, modern man is guiltily onanistic. This article argues that the apostrophic intimacies of lyric and the longings held therein are masturbatory. To do so it reads Rob Halpern's Music for Porn as a deconstructive reading of Walt Whitman's Civil War poetry.

Journal

Angelaki: Journal of Theoretical Humanities – Taylor & Francis

Published: Oct 2, 2015

Keywords: Walt Whitman; Rob Halpern; masturbation; onanism; lyric; Jacques Derrida

References

  • Walt Whitman: The Spermatic Imagination
  • The Spermatic Economy: A Nineteenth Century View of Sexuality
  • Intimate Nationality: Anonymity and Attachment in Whitman
  • Apostrophe
  • Some Correspondence
  • The Poetics of Union in Whitman and Lincoln
  • Baudelaire's ‘Dark Zone’: The Poème en prose as Social Hieroglyph; or The Beginning and the End of Commodity Aesthetics
  • Pornotopias
  • Realism and Utopia: Sex, Writing, and Activism in New Narrative
  • Rob Halpern: On Somatics
  • Apostrophe, Animation, and Abortion
  • Walt Whitman and the Culture of Democracy
  • Ornate and Explosive Grief
  • The Patient Poetry and Poetics of Rob Halpern
  • Problems for Lyric Poetry
  • ‘Spending for Vast Returns’: Sex, Class, and Commerce in the First Leaves of Grass
  • Solitude, Singularity, Seriality: Whitman vis-à-vis Fourier
  • Pornography and Profanation in the Political Philosophy of Giorgio Agamben
  • Diana Described: Scattered Woman and Scattered Rhyme
  • Contemporary Lyric and Epic Constraints: A Reading of Rob Halpern's Weak Link
  • Hard Core: Power, Pleasure, and the “Frenzy of the Visible.”
  • Homosexuality and Utopian Discourse in American Poetry, with an Introduction by Robyn Wiegman