Hi there, I promised you an extra video in which I tried to talk about some of the aspects and ideas and tenants. And beliefs is probably too strong a word that unify some of the language poets, an that's what I want to do here. I want to spend a little time talking about some of these ideas, they these ideas don't work for all the language poets by any means. But, I guess a lot of people find this difficult stuff, so it might be worthwhile being a little reductive. So let me tick off some of the ideas and then go back through them one at a time. So one idea is that language is political, that the matter of languages political at the whole issue of what languages and who owns language as Susan. How says who polices questions of grammar, this is something that she asks about Emily Dickinson who polices questions of grammar really? And if you start asking those questions you will ask some of the questions that the language quotes like to ask. Number two, narrative is conservative, narrative is conservative, remember, Gertrude Stein? Let me recite what teach history, teaches history, teaches, let me recite what history teaches history, teaches history, suggests that A leads to B leads to C leads to D, etc to Z. Language poets are among those Avant-garde poets who are interested in interrogating. The recitation of history, a great example, we encounter a tored, the end of Chapter 8 is in this book by John team Counternarratives and John Keane has created a poem. A prose poem, and I haven't even marked it here it is, it's called persons in places, and you can see the columns are parallel. What you get here is 1 column which is an imagined monologue of W.E.B Du Bois. And another column is an imagined monologue that occurs at the same time. By George Santayana who was a professor teacher at Harvard when Du Bois was a student there and what you get here is history. A history of a convergence encounter that never happened, between these two figures. Well, keen is trying to do is offer a counter narrative, so if the language post thinks that narrative is think that narrative is in for the most part inherently conservative. What keen is doing is he's imagining a different narrative, a narrative in which the eight dizziness of one story actually works in parallel. So that's an important idea, so first languages political who polices questions of grammar? Second narrative is inherently conservative, three the rejection of closure. The rejection of closure, now this is very much like modernism, this is a continuation from Modernism. We have Lyn Hejinian, who's my life we study and this is a book called the language of inquiry, which I highly recommend an in this book. There's a very famous essay by Lyn Hejinian called the rejection of closure, and here are some of the things that she says here. Whether I'm reading from it, pardon all my stickies, whether the form is dictated by temporal constraints or by other exoskeletal formal elements. By a prior decision, for example, that the work will contain, say, a number of sentences, paragraphs stands as stresses or lines. The work gives the impression that it begins and ends arbitrarily, and not because there is a necessary point of origin or terminus. A first or last moment, the implication correct is that the words in the ideas, thoughts, perceptions, etc. The materials, continue beyond the work, one has simply stopped because one has run out of units. This is the ideal text for anginia, less than ideal is a text that is closed attacks that has closure. Which she, another language poets an other thinkers of this time feel, is an arbitrary and capricious imposition on to a text that should be open a false closure. She writes, the the open text and that's really what all MoD Poe poems are ideally open texts, the open text by definition, is open to the world and particularly to the reader. It invites participation. You've heard that idea before in my PO. It invites participation in the co-creation of meaning, right? It invites participation, rejects the authority of the writer over the reader, and thus, by analogy, the authority implicit in other social, economic, cultural hierarchies. The open text, the rejection of closure, speaks for writing that is generative rather than directive. The writer relinquishes total control, and challenges authority as a principle and control as a motive. The open text often emphasizes or foregrounds process, either the process of the original composition or of subsequent compositions by readers. And thus, resists the cultural tendencies that seek to identify and fix material and turn it into a product. That is, it resists reduction and commodification. That is the rejection of closure. So, language is political, who polices questions of grammar, narrative is mostly conservative. And we like open texts and enjoy the rejection of closure, and following that number four on my list of tenets. Poems should be open, not closed down with the I know you don't, I am, you aren't writer-reader relationship now. Hygiene was writing about that there. Five, parataxis, the whole idea of non hierarchical writing. Collage, really, is in a way a kind of parataxis, meaning is made through juxtaposition. And of course, My Life by Lyn Hejinian is a classic instance of new sentences of writing and creating meaning through juxtaposition, or as John Ashbery puts it, in Some Trees, arranging by chance to meet. So, non hierarchical writing, which is what Hejinian argues for in the language of inquiry, the book, the Rejection of Closure. The essay helps create conditions of equality, the new sentence. And Ron Silverman famously wrote a long, it's actually a two night talk that became an essay, a book length essay called The New Sentence. And in that he talks about quote, the increased sensitivity to syllogistic movement, which endows works of the new sentence with a much greater capacity to incorporate ordinary sentences of the material world. And he gives an example right here in this part of his talk at the quote, play of syllogistic movement. And here's his example, I was left holding the bag, I peered into it. The ground was approaching fast. It was aside of himself. He rarely showed. There you have a set, a sequence, non sequence, non sequitur of sentences that play off the syllogistic movement that doesn't quite add up. A great example of this would be a poem by Rae Armantrout. So, many of them. I'm going to read just the first stanza of a poem called Second Person. Lemons lanterns hang late into the evening. There's one sentence, it's actually 3 lines. Then, but you are known for your voluptuous retreat. Now, those two sentences don't seem to follow each other, but what Armantrout does to create this illusion that you should be able to follow one thing after another. She uses the conjunction, but, so first you have lemons, lanterns hung late into the evening. That's one sentence, new sentence. Then you have, you are known for your voluptuous retreat. The two of them don't seem to make sense, but if you stick a but in front of it, you have a kind of syllogistic logic being hinted at. And you're left to try to create a narrative that would somehow explain some kind of party where there are lanterns hung late in the evening and someone, a person, you, second person known for voluptuously treat. That's really cool, and that is what parataxis gets you. So, language is political, narrative is conservative. The rejection of closure, open poems not closed, parataxis, and number six and we've already hinted at it in quoting from Hejinian. The writer reader relationship is transformed. It goes from being a subject object relationship. I am a subject, you reader are an object. You are the object of my writing, and turns it into a subject subject relationship in which the Reader can innocence talk back by co-creating meaning and so that would be subject. That's number 6, so languages is political, narratives is conservative or rejection of closure, open not closed, parataxis. And the reader relationship becomes intersubjective, subject, subject. Number 7, an attempt to break the old equivalence of authority and authorship, Hejinian in the passage I quoted, hinted that as well. Which is why I recommend you read that essay, you have on one hand of authorship, and you have on the other hand authorities. Now let's take the 18th century novel. Let's say Henry fielding, for instance, Henry fielding really felt. I think he really, really felt that when he wrote a novel, he was creating an authority. In fact, his metaphor for that authority was God. Was the deity right? So he believed in a kind of perfect structure of fiction, so that it was godly to create a beautiful structure of his one of his novels. And in this case you have what the language poets layer would consider a confusion of authority and authorship. What their saying and Hejinian said it outright is that, to be authoritative is not necessarily to write. Or better put, to be an author is not necessarily to be authoritative, which is to say an authority, which is to say authoritarian. Okay, languages is political, narrative is conservative, the rejection of closure, open not closed, parataxis writer reader relationship to subject, subject. And let's not confuse authority with authorship. Okay number 8, there is no direction. As Ashbury says is anything central? Beware anyone who tells you that there is a direction, for that person is leading you in a certain direction? Or as Ashbury puts it in a poem called hard times. The world is run on a shoestring or is William Carlos Williams says in his poem to Elsie no one to drive the car. All right, number 9, so we've got language is political, you're enjoying this right? Language is political who polices questions of grammar number 2, narrative is conservative number 3. The rejection closure number 4, open not closed number 5, parataxis number 6, the writer reader relationship is transformed and becomes intersubjective number 7. Don't confuse authority and authorship number 8, there is no direction and there's no one to drive the car number 9, writing is an aide to memory this is. This is another book by Lyn Hejinian called writing as an aid to memory, and it is her most tiniest book. And you can tell by the cover there's something's tiniest and also a little war holian. But it's also 1920s ish about this, and the idea that writing is an aide to memory is very powerful and very simple idea, that was promulgated by Gertrude Stein. That is to say, we have no memory, unless we create and when we create, that is to say we right, even if it's arbitrary. And arbitrary fiction, supreme fiction, while Stevens would have called it, writing itself is an aide to memory. I think I want to quote. Virginia in this wonderful book. This is not going to make a ton of sense, but those of you have read my life will remember this kind of mode of thinking about the baby or child establishing memory of mother. This is a quote from this book, writing as an aid to memory. Mother for more familiar is possible, the legible memory rolls more bits wall hitherto of the soil, smaller beneath wants water. Nor bend the wall part illegible space show startling doors, thus show of the cloth of water pull in wind direction. And twigs notice it is necessary in my part of the country. I take this to be an example of a writer trying to remember a childhood or even babyhood memory or seen. And discovering that it's all putting it into language, its language in the self that actually creates the self. And my favorite phrase in that passage is legible memory. Okay we're moving along. So far we've got nine of them languages political, who polices questions of grammar narrative is conservative, the rejection of closure, open not closed. Parataxis, subject subject relations of writer and reader authorship and authority shouldn't be confused, there is no direction, writing as an aid to memory and two more. Ten, language is a social construction, languages. And the self is languished. I hardly need to tell you more about that, but all I need to do is recommend that you read this book, My Life. In which we find that the self of a child and then a young girl and then a woman is language. The self is language. So you are in a way, some people laugh and they used to say you are what you eat, right? And I think what language poets often say, at least in the early language poets that they would say that the self that you are what you write or you are the accumulation of the language that has struck you and of course idioms are social. All idioms is social, right. Idioms are things you have to learn in social context. Idioms don't make sense without social context, and so I want to give you an example or two of language poets who torque idioms, torque language. Tyrone Williams has a poem called CANT, C A N T, which is itself a pun on the inability to do and also a kind of language that is propagandistic. Just read you a couple of lines from this Thar she blows which is a reference to Moby Dick by Melville. Plus tusks crushed into grins, grins, host to guest of impish nature, her Fort Da. That's a reference to Freud. Look it up. Fort da jewels classified behind blank opposable pupils as opposed to opposable thumbs. Opposable pupils. A habit as in Capitale, Ahab Ahab of Moby Dick Ahab it pun on habit perfected by for the dicey Vail auto, didact, dialectics and so forth. The last lines of this poem can't cast down. Can't go singing in the their Tyrone Williams is a master at torquing idioms and you could say that there tripled puns, but I like the idea of thinking that he's working out idioms. Another example, of course, is Charles Bernstein, who In a Restless World Like This Is a poem of week eight in ModPo. Ends the poem by messing around with an idiom you'll hear it. Here the last four lines of In restless World Like This Is. As far as you go in one direction, all the further you'll have to go on. Before the way back has become totally indivisible. Now I could say a lot about all those lines, but I'll leave it to you to watch the video discussion of this poem and other discussions and get involved in a discussion yourself of it. But all I want to do is comment on the idiom, all the further you'll have to go on before the way back has become totally invisible, so you have two idioms that are clashing there and both used at the same time. You have go on, right. You'll have to go on, meaning you'll have to persist. Right, this is a 911 poem. So you'll have to endure. You'll have to keep walking. All the further you'll have to go on. But of course, he's also talking about walking around and you would say the further you have to go, not go on but go. And then you have another preposition after on before the way back has become totally indivisible. Or John Ashbery, who was who was a week seven poet. But is very very influential on the week eight poets, the language poets. Here's just the beginning of a poem called the Grapevine. And the Grapevine is that thing that you use like heard it through the Grapevine to convey gossip down the line, right? Here is the beginning of the Grapevine which is about gossip, it's about how communication works from person to person. Here it is, of who we and all they are, you all now know. That's the first lines. But you know, after they began to find us out, we grew before they died, thinking us the causes of their acts. This is totally impossible. You have to really think about it, but I want to point out not just the tort shifting pronouns, which is something that the language poets learned from the New York poets. But also the hilarious, almost hilarious way that Ashbery drops in the, you know, you know is like a real Grapevine, gossipy thing, like a people talking on the streets or the stoop. You know, you know, you know, you know. That you know. Also is actually literally active, but you know, after they began to find us out we grew. It's something that you actually know. So talked idioms, part of the language that is the self. The self is language ,all right? So we've got one more, language is political that's one. Narrative is conservative two, rejection closure three. Open, not closed four, parataxis the new sentence five, writer reader relationship is intersubjective six. Authority and authorship should not be confused seven, there is no direction eight. Writing is an aide to memory nine, the self is language 10. And number 11 and finally a phrase from Ron Silverman disappearance of the word appearance of the world. Now this is a reference to the assumption that these poets make that language cannot be transparent. Or it is I should say, a rejection of the historical assumption. That let's say some kind of 19 century novelist who felt that if she or he could really, really get the language right. They would create a world that could stand in for the world. So let's say George Eliot, Middlemarch or Charles Dickens in one of his very realistic novels. And I'm parroting them because they are all so sophisticated writer and they knew very well that language isn't transparent. But they pretended that language is transparent so that they were describing an actual world, right? And we've always assumed when we were children being taught how to use language. We've always assumed that the ideal situation is you would create a language you would write. In such a way that the world would be revealed in the language could get out of the way. And what will be left was the world conveyed, made of in an equivalence. Like looking through a window and the window has been windexed perfectly clean. I'm now looking at a very perfectly clean window here in my house, looking outside. And the idea is that languages like that window and you can look out and not see the window because you're seeing the world. No, said the language poets. No say most of the poets that we're interested in this course. Language is not a clear transparent window. Language is a thing you have to see through. There's a screen, there's smudge, there's pigeon [BLEEP]. There's things on the window that remind me that there is a window separating me from the world. Disappearance of the word. Appearance of the world. The absence of any external references says Silverman, is construed as an absence of meaning. Paul Salon, who is a German language poet living in Paris after World War II. Born in what would now be Romania. In the area of the world, once called Bukovina, I guess had a concept in German called [FOREIGN]. And the idea of [FOREIGN], a [FOREIGN] was a little great that you encounter when you go to an apartment building in Europe in particular. And you push the intercom and you talk through the Great. To someone upstairs, right? This speaking great, that is language. Language is a dirty or smokey window or a great through which you have to speak. All right, so those are 11 ideas that the language poets were interested in. And forgive me I've run on and I'm sure that you've long since stopped watching this video. But I just felt like it was important this one week to spend some time making some generalizations. My poet is not really typically about generalizations, about theorizing ahead of the poems are ideas. You read the poems and then you figure out what their theories and ideas are. But in this one instance I couldn't help myself. I thought I would just recite these eleven tenets. So if you memorize them and go to a cocktail party and say I can tell you 11 tenets of the language poets. Well, you'll get I guess an extra martini at that party, but thank you for listening. For those of you who are still here.
