So our final look at a few poems from the quietistic, or neo-formalist side of the 1950s. There's another side to the 50s which we're going to look at in chapter seven and eight. This is a poem at the end of the decade. Our earlier discussion begins with a 1950 poem. This is 1960. It's called Nude Descending a Staircase, published in Poetry magazine by X.J. Kennedy. The title suggests something. Allie? >> Duchamp. >> Yeah, [CROSSTALK] it's that amazing oil painting that he showed which was controversial. Why? Do you remember? >> Well, because it's called Nude Descending a Staircase, and- >> Because there was a nude in it, yeah. >> Right, but also you kind of look at it and, off the bat, it doesn't look like a nude descending a staircase. >> They were doubly- >> It's kind of [CROSSTALK] non-representational. >> The art conservatives were doubly angry. First they were angry that how dare you depict a nude. And then they got there and realized it didn't depict at all and that makes it worse. Instead of undoing the anger, good, I can't even see the nude, what nude is this? They got angry that representation got thrown out. Okay, so controversial hallmark of modernism. And now in 1960, many years later, after modernism, I suppose you could say, X.J. Kennedy publishes a poem of this title. Just thinking about the title alone, what's your speculation? Amarice, what could possibly be meant by titling a poem with this title? >> I think he's redefining what that nude means in the aesthetic of the 60s, so he's- >> So he's having, [CROSSTALK] I don't know if it's the aesthetic of the 60s, maybe the aesthetic of the 50s. He's revisiting the whole question. Any other thoughts on what the title could possibly mean? >> It's a revision of, or sort of an attempt to improve on, what that former piece is. >> Either a counterargument against modernism or, implicitly, maybe a claim that we can go to the next step as it were. Okay, so now we have the poem. And is the poem multiperspectival, cubistic and wide open, unclear, putting the reader completely at sea, Max? >> No, not at all. >> That's the right answer. >> We even get in the second stanza, we spy beneath the banister. There isn't very much, the speaker is located. He's defined, or [CROSSTALK] they are defined. >> If the subject position of the Duchamp is x, the subject position of the Kennedy poem is y. What's x and y? What's the subject position of the Duchamp? >> Duchamp is watching. Well, Duchamp is trying to represent all the states of motion. It's not really a progression. >> So that's what he's representing, but what's his position? What's the subject position? >> In relation- >> Tough question. >> Yeah, this is a tough question. >> Yeah, anybody want to take a shot at it? Where's he standing? >> [INAUDIBLE] >> Under the stairs. >> What's his, no, no, no. >> Duchamp. >> Duchamp. >> Duchamp's position is he kind of puts the pressure on the viewer to link the pieces together. So it's not- >> Where are we looking? >> Straight on? It's not about the nude. >> It's either straight on or it's progressively instant-to-instant moving forward with. You don't know where it is, it's everywhere. >> It doesn't need to be in one place, it's not- >> It's refuting the notion of being in one place. Otherwise we'd have a still. Okay, so that's the x. And the y, what's the subject position of this poem? >> Under the banister, looking up. >> Looking up we spy. It's a little like the Fragonard painting that Williams is referring to in his poem Portrait of a Lady, which is also a poem that's against portraiture. It's against depiction of the lady in that genre and that tradition. Those two stand as modernists and this is somewhere else. In fact, we are, you said, under the banister. So what are we seeing, like in the Fragonard? You can't even bring yourself to say it. Molly, you don't mind saying it. >> Well, thighs, but [CROSSTALK] are we sure- >> Thighs, we're looking up at this woman coming down the stairs. >> Are we sure that we're under the bannister, because [CROSSTALK] we spy beneath the bannister a constant thresh of thigh on thigh. >> She's coming down the stairs, [CROSSTALK] it's like prom night but she's naked. I mean we're- >> Right, I get that. >> We're under the- >> [LAUGH] >> Either we're looking up and it's a kind of a portrait situation or we're secretly looking up, spying. But I think spy might just be we look. But what are we seeing? A constant thresh of thigh on thigh, so what kind of tone is that? Doesn't seem like he's conveying a sense that this is just lovely and exciting. >> He's objectifying her. >> That's for sure, but what is the- >> It's a little grotesque. >> The constant thresh, that seems a little bit satirical, maybe a lot. Threshing of thigh on thigh. That doesn't sound titillating. >> No. >> No. Her lips imprint the swinging air. What a strange line. Emily, can you make any sense of that? You don't want to touch this with a ten foot pole. >> [LAUGH] Who would? I guess I read the swinging air as well, she's sort of swinging through the air in that sort of motion. Rebounding I guess. And the air seems to swing the way she swings [CROSSTALK] through it. >> And what happens to the air? >> It parts to let her parts go by? >> Yeah, what does that mean? Can you translate that? I think I want to let Kristin take this one. >> [LAUGH] >> I'm equally as grossed out. As she whooshes through the air it goes behind her so that she can- >> There's some kind of reference to the Duchamp. >> Yeah, I mean it's trying to show that everything is in motion. >> Yeah, that her parts, which would be the rough equivalent to the cubistic fragment of the body, moves through the air. So where are we? So far what do you think the poem is saying about Duchamp in modernism and cubism and the anti-portraiture movement of modernism? Amarice, what's it saying so far? Is it a satire? >> It seems to be, yes, because it's just so overly done, garish in its descriptions. >> He's mocking those who would take this scene seriously. Or those who would take Duchamp seriously? Do we have any evidence that he's also satirizing the woman? >> Yeah, because she has nothing on nor on her mind. >> Explain that pun. >> She has no clothes on and she also has nothing in her mind. >> She's- >> Empty-headed. >> The speaker seems to imply that she's not thinking of anything or that she's a, what's the word we would use? >> Airhead? >> Airhead, bimbo, she's just a model. And I think that, I don't know if Duchamp in your mind successfully achieves seriousness, taking the woman seriously. I do think, although Williams's Portrait of a Lady is funny because he keeps second-guessing himself, I think he ultimately takes the object of his gaze seriously enough to question his ability to describe her without objectifying her completely. And this is Williams, who's like Mr. Objectification of women. And I think that the toad of Wilbur has a lot to do with this, unfortunately, because the toad is purely an object. >> It's not worth taking seriously. >> So whether she has something on her mind or not, she is simply a nude, in the tradition of our history, coming down the stairs. And now, go ahead. >> Well, I was thinking one of the kind of key things about Duchamp's Nude Descending a Staircase is that even though it's broken into parts, you really can't, it's not reminiscent, it's so far from realism. And so breaking this into parts, the parts to let her parts go by. It's being representational but what it's representing is not the human but the female parts, which is then dehumanizing. >> So then this brings us to the last stanza because it collects everything into shape. One-woman waterfall, she wears her slow descent like a long cape and pausing on the final stair, collects her motions into shape. What's happening, Kristen? >> He is putting the parts of the woman back into one whole. >> How did he do that? >> She pauses on the final stair and while she is standing on that final stair, all of her descent all the waterfall comes into one. >> It kind of collects. >> Yeah, and so it's kind of going against Duchamp again, because Duchamp leaves the process on the canvas, whereas this is putting it all into one neat box at the end. >> And the shapeliness of the poem certainly hints that this is not just ironic. What kind of shapeliness do we have here? >> We have perfect quatrains. >> Perfect quatrains, A-B-C-B, these are quatrains. Again, the ballad rhyme, flesh-rind-stairs-mind, banister-thigh-air-go by, wears-cape-stair-shape. Everything at the end of this perfect three quatrain poem settles into a finished form, where Duchamp is open even though it's flat on the canvas. Here the depiction is closed. It's a been there, done that definitive rendering of motion and dynamism and subjectivity. This is a woman who it's not possible. Thanks to Emily Dickinson, we know the brain can't possibly not have anything on its mind. It will flow where it's going to flow and it'll flow a whole lot more like Duchamp than it will this. Although there isn't any direct line between Dickinson and Duchamp, from this perspective it sure does seem that way. Again, water and the mind will go where it's going to go and that is the truth. And this poem collects it all into shape, and also bases its conclusions on the assumption that the object of artistic study has nothing on her mind. Satirical or not, that's what it says. All right, so let's go around and have some final words on this. Where have we gotten to? We've been pretty harsh on this. If it's a satire and if it's a critique of Duchamp, it's pretty effective as a satire. I mean, we certainly talked about its differences. It certainly takes a position. So Max, we'll start with you. Any final thought? >> It seems to me kind of like the Death of a Toad in that the object of the satire is not well enough defined or even satirized. And rather, if what Kennedy is trying to do is to satirize Duchamp's mode or his painting, or I guess the whole general modernist mode, he doesn't do a very good job if it, because instead he winds up satirizing this woman. He just pulls in this extra person, this extra object as sort of a pedestal to just sort of wring out and use as ammunition or something. >> Okay, Molly? >> No, I think Max is right. He's so over the top with the the similes and the metaphors of the snowing flesh and the gold of lemon, it becomes really shallow, almost imagistic, which is kind of the opposite of what he was trying to do, I think. >> Okay, Amarice? >> Yeah, I think in the end, like Max and Molly have said, just the overuse of alliteration and the dismemberment that Allie was talking about sort of falls flat in terms of its intentions and its form. >> Anna? >> Yeah, I don't think it goes quite, if it was really going to be like a crazy, Bishop-style, over-the-top satire- >> John Peale Bishop, A Recollection. >> Yeah, it would go further. Bishop's satire goes way over- >> Goes all the way and gives us unmistakable evidence that he's undermining the use of traditional form. >> I think he's just enough in it that I can't totally dismiss this as being a satire. I'm still kind of a little bit offended by it. >> Is it not at all an effective critique of Duchampian modernism? Does it not say anything about that that gives you pause? >> I mean, this could be like the Rockwell to Duchamp. >> Norman Rockwell, okay, I see what you're saying. I don't think Norman Rockwell would do this- >> No, I don't think he would either but I think Rockwell sort of represents that going back to- >> He would do the lawn mowing probably. >> Yeah, Rockwell kind of represents that going back to traditional American values, whereas- >> Unselfconsciously. This is very self conscious. We have to give it that absolutely. >> Just kind of what you're saying about going back to traditional American values, I think this actually is 100% effective in satirizing Duchamp, because there's a last line, collects her motion into shape, but also because Duchamp is kind of on the side of the force that says, yes, go beyond, go the extra step. This is no, return to normalcy. And normalcy is kind of- >> So after all the fragmentation, collect into shape, the end. >> Granted, there is a lot of shape in cubism. It's all about shapes. >> But this is [CROSSTALK] collecting it into shape, yes. Dave? >> I think the critique was really clever in the way he makes fun of the modernists' objectification on a literal sense for turning a person into just straight objects, and also in a more figurative sense by objectifying a woman as nothing on her mind. Just making her an object. >> Amarice used the word dismemberment. And it's possible to see that as very legitimate critique of modernism. Certainly we saw a hint of it Pound, in The Encounter. There's a way in which it's cool and hip to celebrate fragments. But when the anti-portraiture is still of a woman there's bound to be some dismemberment there. So it's possible that Kennedy is implying a kind of feminist critique of the objectification of the fragment-obsessed modernist. I think that's being a little generous, but I think it's possible. Kristen? >> I would have to agree more with Max and say that I don't think the satire quite works because I feel like there are two things that he's satirizing here. It's like a bifurcated satire. He's satirizing at the end, we see that he's going against Duchamp fully with the last couple of lines. In the beginning he's really just objectifying a woman and saying that she's an airhead. So it doesn't really work. There's too many things going on and it's all too much on the surface. >> And what turns you off by the constant thresh of thigh on thigh, beyond the obvious? >> It's garish. It's just like. >> You sound like Mrs. Ward. >> [LAUGH] >> It's objectifying this woman but also making her very unappealing. And so I don't know, I just don't like it. >> Okay, Emily. >> Yeah, I don't like this for a number of reasons. And I could admire the satire if I thought it was accomplishing something. And staking out the painting by Duchamp as a sort of satirical object would be all right if he did actually do it one better or did something different. But if his complaint is that he's objectifying her, that Duchamp is objectifying her in that painting, he objectifies her even more in this one. And if he tries to sort of one-up his aesthetic program, aesthetic objective, he fails there too, because this is derivative and uninteresting. And I just don't think it adds anything or makes any legitimate critiques either. >> And I think I'll just say finally, that I'm not all offended by assumptions of we and us in, for instance, Claude McKay's Kinsmen! I know he's reaching out beyond the immediate community to the community of readers of anthologies, trying to drag me into his situation. I'm ready to go. And so there's a presumptuous we there implicit. I think there's no attempt to do we in Duchamp. There's no attempt to do it in Williams. He's saying I. And if there's a we, it's Williams's subject and the object. Here I think we is trying to get me to commit to this, I guess Kristin would say sin of awful seeing, putting me in how dare he tell me where I stand. I want stand, subject position, to be open and free. I don't really want to be situated where I have no choice but to look up at this nude.
