The Historical and the Metaphysical in George Oppens’ “Route”

Robert Baker’s fields of interest are modern poetry from the romantic period through the present, twentieth-century and contemporary literature, and the relationships among literature, philosophy, and religion. His first book, “The Extravagant: Crossings of Modern Poetry and Modern Philosophy,” includes detailed discussions of Kant, Wordsworth, Lyotard, Rimbaud, Nietzsche, Bataille, Kierkegaard, Dickinson, Mallarme, and Derrida. His second book, “In the Dark Again in Wonder: The Poetry of Rene Char and George Oppen”, is a study of two late modernist poets, both of whom were fully engaged in the political upheavals of the 1930s and 1940s.