Abstract

Matthew Holman’s article, ‘Je suis las de vivre au pays natal’: At Home and at Sea with Frank O’Hara,’ explores the poetry of O’Hara that addresses ideas of ‘home’ and ‘return,’ particularly in the context of O’Hara’s navy service in New Guinea between June 1944 and July 1946. Drawing attention to the crucial influence of James Joyce’s  Ulysses and his ‘revivification of the nostos narrative’ on O’Hara’s poetry, which provides a literary frame of reference for his own anticipated homecoming, Holman argues for the critical significance of nostalgia in O’Hara’s work, which is to be understood both in terms of its multi-directionality and as a longing for places or times that are unknown. In doing so, Holman provides an insight into O’Hara’s nascent cosmopolitan outlook and its dialectical relationship to the notion of homecoming, which has profound implications for our understanding of O’Hara’s personal and poetic identity.

How to Cite:

Holman, M., (2016) “'Je suis las de vivre au pays natal': At Home and at Sea with Frank O'Hara”, Dandelion: Postgraduate Arts Journal and Research Network 7(1). doi: https://doi.org/10.16995/ddl.339