http://www.loc.gov/mods/v3 http://www.loc.gov/standards/mods/v3/mods-3-2.xsd
That self-forgetful perfectly useless concentration
This book looks at the role of conventions, of literary and social norms, in how we fashion our identities on and off the page, and how suffering both requires and resists self-expression. The author sketches affectionate portraits of his early teachers, revisits the deaths of his brother and sister and examines poems that have helped him navigate troubled times. Integrating storytelling and literary analysis that art and life become extensions of each other, he embodies in his lively prose the very qualities he celebrates in the poems he loves.
Convention and self-expression -- Mark Twain and the creative ambiguities of expertise -- My tears see more than my eyes -- Translation as "linguistic hospitality" -- Some questions concerning art and suffering -- Technique of empathy: free indirect style -- Thirteen ways of looking at decorum -- Convention and mysticism: Dickinson, Hardy, Williams -- Why write?
Includes bibliographical references (pages 185-186).