Hebdomadal 7

Topic 1: Postmodernism vs. Modernism

Compare any Marilyn Hacker poem of your choice to any of the poems we read in the first half of the semester. (Suggestions: section III of "Sunday Morning"; nearly any stanza of "Prufrock" or the "young man carbuncular" section of "The Waste Land," ll. 220ff; the last two stanzas of "Long-legged Fly.")

Begin by forgetting what Prof. Wolfe said about postmodernism this morning. Using your own observations, write a paragraph identifying both the poetic and philosophic differences between these two poems. Look for subtle, nuanced, rich, strange differences: suggest comparisons that sound like they might be stretches. Take risks in your reading. (Think, here, of the message of "Who Goes With Fergus?": no more brood on fears and hopes, but, instead, devote all your emotional energies to penetrating the aesthetic mysteries of the world.

After you've written this brilliant, original comparison of the two poems, return to your notes from today's lecture. How does your analysis fit in with what Prof. Wolfe was saying? Or does it not fit in at all? -- have you seen something quite new in the difference between modern and postmodern literature?

Topic 1½: Postmodernism for mom

Pick a friend or a member of your family who might, conceivably, ask you one day to explain the difference between modernism and postmodernism. It's reasonable to assume that, for example, your parents read T. S. Eliot or maybe even Wallace Stevens when they were in college, so you might use them generally as jumping-off points. Then, using specific ideas and evidence from a Marilyn Hacker poem or from Beloved, explain in plain English how postmodernism differs from modernism both aesthetically and philosophically. In other words, what do postmodernists believe that might be different from what, say, T. S. Eliot believed? And, considering this difference in belief, how is postmodern literature different?

Topic 2: Postmodernism vs. postmodernism

Pick a Hacker poem of your choice, and any paragraph from Beloved. (Suggestion: "Lesbian Ethics, or: Live Girl-Girl Sex Acts" and the not-quite-a-sex-scene between Paul D and Sethe on p. 21.)