Studies the works of representative authors from later nineteenth-century American prose and poetry to show that this era was predominantly symbolistic in form, style and mood

Essays. Will Alexander's TOWARDS THE PRIMEVAL LIGHTNING FIELD is a work of vertical philosophy revealing strata of cultures and language, like geographical layers seen all at once. Simultaneous arpeggios of linguistic realms that explore language and perceiving. Elliot Weinberger has written about Alexander's writing: His work resembles no one's, and is instantly recognizable. In part, he is an ecstatic surrealist on imaginal hyperdrive. He is probably the only African-American poet to take Aime Cesaire as a spiritual father ... [Alexander is] a poet whose ecstasy derives from the scientific description of the stuff and the workings of the world.