---

Pierre Bourdieu defines the literary field as a social microcosm shaped by permanent struggles over recognition and prestige. As a consequence, being different from others in the field represents a social effect that results from the efforts made by agents to claim and defend their position and/or to mark off the position of other peers from their own. The present study explores strategies of distinction in the field of twentieth-century American poetry by tracing the means and meanings of nomenclatures. Drawing on as well as expanding Bourdieu´s theoretical framework, this volume argues that nomenclatures can and should be understood as symbolic stakes in the conflict between twentieth-century poetic avant-gardes and the poetic establishment. Assembling a diverse corpus of metatexts, the book examines the ways in which nomenclatures (such as, for instance, the epithets ´experimental´, ´new´, and ´open´) were strategically invested with distinctive, that is, conflicting and contradictory, meanings by opposing factions in the field of American poetry throughout the twentieth century.

---