"I for i and i for I": Susan Howe's That This and the Relational Self

Abstract:Susan Howe's use of raw personal experience in her 2010 volume That This should be understood as part of her interdisciplinary investigation into the work of some of her central inspirations: Charles Sanders Peirce, Jonathan Edwards, and Ralph Waldo Emerson. Diving deeply into their ideas—in particular Peirce's explorations of grammatical connection and Edwards's typology—Howe uses the tools specific to poetry (including typography, juxtaposition, and metaphor) to extend their thinking and make visceral to readers the relational nature of the self. In so doing, she develops an understanding of poetry as work that combines knowledge with emotional power.