Robert Bly, Silence in the Snowy Fields

William V. Davis (Baylor University)

Ed. by Emory Elliott, University of California, Riverside
The Literary Encyclopedia. Volume 3.2.4: American (US) Writing and Culture: Postwar and Contemporary, 1945-present.
Vol. editors: Sofia Ahlberg (Uppsala University), Patrick Chura (University of Akron), Emory Elliott (University of California, Riverside), Dale Enggass (University of Utah), Christopher Hugh Gair (University of Glasgow), Matthew Hofer (University of New Mexico), Stephen E. Meats (Pittsburg State University), Kerry Myler (Birmingham Newman University), Justin Parks (UiT - The Arctic University of Norway), Nick Selby (University of East Anglia)

Dates

First circulation or publication 1962

Places

United States (Country of Origin)

Genres and Modes

Poem collection

Resources

Save to Bookshelf

Silence in the Snowy Fields

(1962), Robert Bly's first book of poems, signaled a new beginning in American poetry and it immediately put Bly on the literary map. It remains his signature volume. The thematic “signature” in the forty-four lyric poems in

Silence

is Bly's blatant, insistent use of what has come to be called “deep images.” “Deep images,” according to Bly, are filled with “great spiritual energy”; they “leap” from one thing to another by “trusting the unconscious.” They are, therefore, images that – although they may initially seem “irrational” – include the intellect in their attempts to be psychologically accurate. As Bly explained in his essay “Recognizing the Image as a Form of Intelligence” (1981), such images allow a poet to bring…

Please log in to consult the article in its entirety. If you are a member (student of staff) of a subscribing institution (see List), you should be able to access the LE on campus directly (without the need to log in), and off-campus either via the institutional log in we offer, or via your institution's remote access facilities, or by creating a personal user account with your institutional email address. If you are not a member of a subscribing institution, you will need to purchase a personal subscription. For more information on how to subscribe as an individual user, please see under Individual Subcriptions.

564 words

Citation: Davis, William V.. "Silence in the Snowy Fields". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 07 July 2001 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=2067, accessed 23 November 2024.]

Robert Bly, Silence in the Snowy Fields

Dates

Places

Genres and Modes

Resources

Save this article

Leave Feedback