Abstract

This dissertation provides a theoretical grounding for the critique of "indeterminacy" in recent US American literary production in two ways. Part one explores the concept, discussed and employed by French philosopher Gilles Deleuze, of the literary "encounter," and reads such encounters in his own work as well as that of New American poet Robert Duncan. In reading Henri Bergson, Deleuze encounters Kant; in reading Gertrude Stein, Duncan encounters Emerson. This sort of reading follows the logic of indeterminacy as a poetic tradition. Part two reads three important poets of this tradition, Jackson Mac Low, Hannah Weiner, and Lyn Hejinian. Their taking part of this tradition is found, through close readings of their works, to logically necessitate we ascribe to their works not a single critical category but a practical plurality of indeterminacies