Is having an aesthetics language through a poem important?
In our reading for Spit Temple book, I closely read the performance that has been done in Barnard College in 1996. Before that, and in order to clearly understand the era and/or scope, I went over a bunch of websites that discuss the Postmodernism literature.
What I found interesting, is that the rejection of the Old Victorian Literature is one of the facets of the Postmodernism. Consequently, the pretty, aesthetics language is not presented in this type of art, which is postmodernism. Although avoiding this type of language makes it a little bit easier and more clear for non- native English speakers like us, I think it takes out the beauty of any peace of art. With all the respect of the Postmodernism lovers, I believe that any literary work has to be tend to aesthetics language more than our daily language. And this is not the case here. This is very clear in the selected poems that we have read this week. For instance,
” But for me, Baghdad in the 60s
What could it have been?
It must have been Scheherazade
The woman who saved her neck
Every night
With her tongue”(p.146).
These stanzas are very sample, clear words and descriptions. Nevertheless, it cannot be compared with the beauty language that is in Old English literature, which is I tend to call it the pure literature. I am going to provide here a part of ” She Walks in Beauty” by Lord Byron.
You raise several important issues: 1) taste; 2) style; 3) literary language. In terms of the first, different readers always do have preferences. But these are not entirely natural. They are, to some degree, what we have been taught to value. Like the taste for food, what we become accustomed to constrains and enables what we enjoy (how spicy, etc.) So then, we recognize there are different styles and, in fact, they vary within and across times and cultures. Thus in late 19th century American poetry, for example, some poets write with rhymes and some do not. We may (1. taste) prefer one or the other; and, at first, certainly many audience prefer what they already know how to appreciate. However, there is no single, eternal style — any more than there is a solid definition of literary language or poetic fundamentals. It changes over time. And repeatedly, artists and poets provoke some readers into reevaluating what does and does not count as good poetry. Unfortunately, for those coming to modernism or postmodernism for the first time, the contrast with 18th and 19th century literary conventions can be a little painful. You are travelling 200 years all at once!