Making Use of the White Space

[EileenGreay]

I think the literary term you are looking for is "allusion" not "white space" which has a specific definition in poetry that is /not/ being utilized in this poem at all.

Then again, taking into consideration your usual clumsiness, you may mean alliteration, the world may never know.

Milo,

I wasn't the one who started using the term "white space". I am very aware of white space is. I believe the original poster who mentioned it (EileenGreay) was metaphorically using the term to talk about how the poem resides in the our collective sense of literature. She wasn't talking about allusion, which is an indirect reference.

By the way, James Wright is not alluding to Judas at all.

If I write "Not with a bang but a whimper." I am alluding to "The Hollow Men". If I directly mention "The Hollow Men", it is no longer an allusion.

Bill

First, you are incorrect with the usages of allusion. You can allude to character, famous works, even authors.

By mentioning Judas Iscariot, you /allude/ to the biblical stories of Judas Iscariot. The reason authors do this is the economy presented. An literary work that alludes to another literary work, character or author inherits the properties, as the author did in the above sonnet. Judas Iscariot appears nowhere in the above sonnet, but the sonnet inherits his history, an excellent example of allusion.

As to why you are misusing the literary term "white space" now on top of the ter "allusion" I can't quite figure out what you are saying other than it is someone else's fault(?)

*note, I went back and checked, and Eileengreay has white representing the literal white space in the poem. IOW, they used the term properly in their free verse poem, you are continuing to use it improperly in this sonnet.

Ah, well this explains away a lot of my confusion at your comments, Bill...

As Milo has pointed out, I was using 'blank space' to refer to the physical white spaces in which a poem rests - the space it inhabits, the gaps between words, and this is related to the notion of mise-en-page.

What you are referring to is allusion indeed, but I think the real word you're looking for is intertextuality.

Julia Kristeva coined this term, and declared that "any text is constructed as a mosaic of quotations; any text is the absorption and transformation of another". The 'space' you are referring to is intertextual space - Barthes also wrote on this, but I don't think he used the term intertextuality...

I don't have much time to offer a thorough explanation, but what you mean is certainly not 'blank space' but rather a web of citations and references.

Sorry this is hurried. I'll try and clarify later.