Postdigital Global Literary History: On the Fourth Edition of The Princeton Encyclopedia of Poetry and Poetics

This review essay takes the occasion of the publication of the Fourth Edition of The Princeton Encyclopedia of Poetry and Poetics to ask what it might mean, in the digital present, to use print as a medium for trying to speak comprehensively and authoritatively about the history of poetry around the world from beginning to present. It argues that this particular reference work is a “postdigital” creation that makes use of the format of the print codex to suggest that its plethora of authors and entries, whatever their disagreements and failings, have been assembled into a global community of scholars collectively capable of recounting the whole of poetry's history as an art form. Particular attention is paid to The Princeton Encyclopedia's coverage of poetry by North American indigenous writers.