ORCID
0000-0001-7178-8438
Keywords
Charles Reznikoff, Holocaust poetry, American poetry, poetic form
Abstract
This essay examines the gradual development of Charles Reznikoff’s testimony form Holocaust poetry, which ultimately rejected the traditional lyric forms of his earlier works in favor of a stark, Objectivist poetry that culminated in Holocaust (1975)—a poem based on the transcripts from the Nuremberg and Eichmann trials. The WWI poems from Reznikoff’s first volume Rhythms (1918) underscore the importance of music to his early elegies in contrast to the blunt, impersonal testimonies in Holocaust. In Rhythms, Reznikoff employs traditional conventions ironically to convey war’s unpoetic reality while the poetic speakers in Going To and Fro and Walking Up and Down (1941) seek refuge in those forms at the same time they question the value of the forms when confronted with violence. However, thirty years after the Holocaust, the traditional forms could no longer provide solace in the face of an overwhelming history of suffering.
Publication Date
2019
Document Type
Paper
Language
English
Copyright Status
Author retained
Publication Version
Pre-print
Rights
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
College
Academic Affairs
Location
Orlando (Main) Campus
Department
Libraries
Accessibility Status
PDF accessibility verified using Adobe Acrobat Pro Accessibility Checker
STARS Citation
Trnka, Rachel E., "Testimony, objectivism, and poetic form in Charles Reznikoff’s Holocaust" (2019). Faculty Scholarship and Creative Works. 1302.
https://stars.library.ucf.edu/ucfscholar/1302