ABSTRACT
This chapter shows Miller as a close reader of poets, especially of the nineteenth and twentieth century. It begins with an examination of The Disappearance of God, in which Miller, characteristically, reads prose and poetry in the same volume, here Thomas De Quincy, Robert Browning, Emily Brontë, Matthew Arnold and Gerard Manley Hopkins. In the 1960s, Miller explores poetry and fiction through close readings. Matthew Arnold’s poetry also appealed to Miller, who says: “For Arnold the soul, at the present time, is the casual locus of a succession of fragmentary experiences.” Miller discusses poetry and poems widely and performs many enlightening close readings. In An Innocent Abroad, Miller also speaks about poetry in the context of the indigene and the cybersurfer, and Stevens, Yeats and poetry travelled with Miller to China and the original lecture was recast in other publications about globalization and indigenous communities, Jacques Derrida and the conflagration of community.
