Description
Over the course of his long career, Nathaniel Tarn has been a poet, anthropologist, and book editor, while his travels have taken him into every continent. Born in France, raised in England, and earning a Ph.D. from the University of Chicago, he knew Andre Breton, Salvador Dali, Marcel Duchamp, Margot Fonteyn, Charles Olson, Claude Levi-Strauss, and many more of the twentieth century's major artists and intellectuals. In Atlantis, an Autoanthropology he writes that he has "never (yet) been able to experience the sensation of being only one person." Throughout this literary memoir and autoethnography, Tarn captures this multiplicity and reaches for the uncertainties of a life lived in a dizzying array of times, cultures, and environments. Drawing on his practice as an anthropologist, he takes himself as a subject of study, examining the shape of a life devoted to the study of the whole of human culture. Atlantis, an Autoanthropology prompts us to consider our own multiple selves and the mysteries contained within.
About the Author
Nathaniel Tarn is Distinguished Professor Emeritus of Comparative Literature and Anthropology at Rutgers University and the author of over three dozen works of poetry, criticism, and scholarship, including The Hoelderliniae, Gondwana and Other Poems, and The Embattled Lyric: Essays and Conversations in Poetics and Anthropology. He has lived north of Santa Fe, New Mexico, for the past forty years.
Reviews
"Nathaniel Tarn doesn't fit our whole world within his imagined autobiographical Atlantis, but he comes intoxicatingly close by way of a rigorous and expansive investigation of his lifelong quest to achieve a science of spirituality. 'Completion,' Tarn declares, 'is not a word that should ever come near this book.' Likewise, no reader interested in the myriad histories and personae of the self will wish for it either." -- Albert Mobilio
"What a great pleasure it is to read such a thoughtful, original, and necessary book, one that touches on so many aspects of culture, the life of the mind, the sources and resources of the creative imagination, all indelibly arrayed against a long life full of exotic travels and memorable human encounters. There is so much to savor in this fabulously inviting work of courageous generosity." -- Jed Rasula
"A work of brilliant originality, simultaneously a memoir, an ethnography, a sweeping masterpiece of travel literature, and above all, a poetic testimony of unflinching intelligence and grand passion." -- Norman Finkelstein * Restless Messengers *
"It's singularly interesting experience to ingest this book, to be amid it, even to be overwhelmed by it. Atlantis, is a readable avalanche, a discontinuous (but still chronological) memoir, a Big Bricolage of notations, essayistic forays, diary squibs of living life, field notes and polemics, giving the reader charming and telling vignettes . . . these being anecdotes of rare drollery, along with polemics of incisive, and sometimes got-a-bee-in-bonnet challenges...." -- Rachel Blau DuPlessis * Restless Messengers *
"Tarn brings to life a seven-decade career lived traveling and writing throughout the world. Impressive in his ability to conjure up meetings with publishers and conversations with friends that took place more than 50 years ago, Tarn builds on his experiences to create an ethnographic study of himself that reads like a biography that is an autobiography. Enthusiasts of anthropology, poetry, academic life, and self-writing will enjoy Tarn's approach and the insider's perspective he brings to a life spent translating, publishing, editing, teaching, and traveling. . . . Recommended. Graduate students through faculty." -- S. Batcos * Choice *
"At its heart, it is an exploration of poetry: what it is and how it comes about within the mind of the creator. There are insights into the visionary poetry of Wordsworth and Blake, the need for the poet not merely to give pleasure but crucially to become part of the very spin of the world in motion. It is also about the many different sides of Tarn. . . . Although, at times, the writing is introspective, his style is always engaging and often conversational with a good dose of humour." -- Neil Leadbeater * North of Oxford *
Book Information
ISBN 9781478017905
Author Nathaniel Tarn
Format Paperback
Page Count 344
Imprint Duke University Press
Publisher Duke University Press
Weight(grams) 522g
About the Author
Nathaniel Tarn is Distinguished Professor Emeritus of Comparative Literature and Anthropology at Rutgers University and the author of over three dozen works of poetry, criticism, and scholarship, including The Hoelderliniae, Gondwana and Other Poems, and The Embattled Lyric: Essays and Conversations in Poetics and Anthropology. He has lived north of Santa Fe, New Mexico, for the past forty years.
Reviews
"Nathaniel Tarn doesn't fit our whole world within his imagined autobiographical Atlantis, but he comes intoxicatingly close by way of a rigorous and expansive investigation of his lifelong quest to achieve a science of spirituality. 'Completion,' Tarn declares, 'is not a word that should ever come near this book.' Likewise, no reader interested in the myriad histories and personae of the self will wish for it either." -- Albert Mobilio
"What a great pleasure it is to read such a thoughtful, original, and necessary book, one that touches on so many aspects of culture, the life of the mind, the sources and resources of the creative imagination, all indelibly arrayed against a long life full of exotic travels and memorable human encounters. There is so much to savor in this fabulously inviting work of courageous generosity." -- Jed Rasula
"A work of brilliant originality, simultaneously a memoir, an ethnography, a sweeping masterpiece of travel literature, and above all, a poetic testimony of unflinching intelligence and grand passion." -- Norman Finkelstein * Restless Messengers *
"It's singularly interesting experience to ingest this book, to be amid it, even to be overwhelmed by it. Atlantis, is a readable avalanche, a discontinuous (but still chronological) memoir, a Big Bricolage of notations, essayistic forays, diary squibs of living life, field notes and polemics, giving the reader charming and telling vignettes . . . these being anecdotes of rare drollery, along with polemics of incisive, and sometimes got-a-bee-in-bonnet challenges...." -- Rachel Blau DuPlessis * Restless Messengers *
"Tarn brings to life a seven-decade career lived traveling and writing throughout the world. Impressive in his ability to conjure up meetings with publishers and conversations with friends that took place more than 50 years ago, Tarn builds on his experiences to create an ethnographic study of himself that reads like a biography that is an autobiography. Enthusiasts of anthropology, poetry, academic life, and self-writing will enjoy Tarn's approach and the insider's perspective he brings to a life spent translating, publishing, editing, teaching, and traveling. . . . Recommended. Graduate students through faculty." -- S. Batcos * Choice *
"At its heart, it is an exploration of poetry: what it is and how it comes about within the mind of the creator. There are insights into the visionary poetry of Wordsworth and Blake, the need for the poet not merely to give pleasure but crucially to become part of the very spin of the world in motion. It is also about the many different sides of Tarn. . . . Although, at times, the writing is introspective, his style is always engaging and often conversational with a good dose of humour." -- Neil Leadbeater * North of Oxford *
Book Information
ISBN 9781478017905
Author Nathaniel Tarn
Format Paperback
Page Count 344
Imprint Duke University Press
Publisher Duke University Press
Weight(grams) 522g
