Inferno ; and, Influence Hunger : a manifesto

This thesis identifies and evaluates the nature of poetic influence, building off Harold Bloom's interpretation of poetic influence as expressed in his The Anxiety of Influence and The Anatomy of Influence. It is separated into two components. The first is a series of poems taking structural and thematic influence from Dante Alighieri's Inferno. Groups of poems are divided and modeled after the Inferno's circles of Hell on either a technical level or through a group of poems' shared content. The second component is an extended lyric essay which presents examples of poetic influence throughout the history of poetry, including contemporary examples set alongside the author's work. By examining how a later poet's work is informed by an earlier poet's work through close readings and extensive looks at Bloom, the thesis also aims to show how poetic influence functions differently in certain contexts and under certain conditions. The role of academia and its modes of teaching poetry in Creative Writing courses is one such context, and the form of the lyric essay allows for the author's reflections of poetic development in such a context to help explain how poetic influence has worked within the poetry of the first component.