Gnostic Contagion

[Dave Monroe]

O'Leary, Peter.  Gnostic Contagion:
   Robert Duncan and the Poetry of Illness.
   Middletown, CT: Wesleyan UP, 2002.

Robert Duncan’s poetic creativity does not exist
without a language of illness, nor the revelation and
insight that such language generates.[...] Through
close readings of crucial poems, Peter O'Leary shows
how Duncan's poetry locates a gnostic insight
expressed through a language of illness in the realms
of religion. Gnosticism is a doctrine of salvation by
knowledge.

In addition [...] O'Leary considers the psychological
impact Freud's ideas of the unconscious and dream
interpretation had on the poet.[...] an analysis of
Duncan's work in light of the theories of shamanism
put forth by religion historian Mircea Eliade. Along
the way, O'Leary undertakes detailed discussions of
gnosticism, hermeticism, spiritualism, psychoanalysis,
shamanism and religions of the African diaspora.

http://www.dartmouth.edu/~upne/0-8195-6563-6.html

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