Andrew Ross on the Failure of Modernism

Andrew Ross argues that Modernism considers subjectivity problematic due to compelling contemporary attacks on epistemology (i.e. subjectivism). Subjectivity, from this perspective, is a "problem" which must be resolved, however inconclusively, by reforming language. Ross maintains that poetic practice, and language in general, always retains a role in subjectivity. Because modernism does not understand that this role persists, failure is its chief theme. This theme plays out primarily in a poetry that dismisses subjectivity in favor of other modes of apprehending a truer reality; but Ross points out that these efforts to obtain some sort of unifying conception of reality are bound to fail. Modernism speaks of and through these failures.

I'm inclined to agree with the basics of Ross's argument, but I don't find modernism's interest in failure evidence of failure. That is, it seems modernist poets merely see in the failure of subjectivism an important loss for the subject, not necessarily an equivalency. Parallel discoveries might include the heliocentric solar system, the existence of other galaxies, or the theory of relativity. Each of these revolutionary ideas affects our notions of ourselves, damaging (or at least recasting) the development of our subjectivities. Again, this is a human drama.

I think Ross recognizes that modernist explorations of these revelations are not completely without value. While Ross points out that modernist's believe the aesthetic process cannot bridge the rift torn open by the indeterminacy remaining after subjectivism has been demolished, they certainly have done something in producing their texts. Ross's reading of "Gerontion" (and, by extension, Eliot's other early work) involves, in part, an interpretation of sexual frustration as a rejection of subjectivity marred by imperfect desire (57). Sex is itself an articulation bound to fail because it derives from a too-complete sense of complementarity. From this perspective, Eliot's poetic project may fail, but in doing so it provides a diagnosis of the various manifestations of failure in modern life.

Gertrude Stein and the value of meaning

There is no better writer than Stein for stating at the outset the tentativeness of one's critical assertions. In Tender Buttons, she is obscure. She leaves playfully up-ended any definite notions of meaning one may have had before coming to her work. The question is not whether it's nonsense, but what type of nonsense it is and whether it can tell us anything. There's not going to be any sense at the narrative level; one can only look for which meanings might be subverted by the unexpected, and which meanings are created through those subversions. I can only hope to read small pieces of brokenness to look for what might be offered in return.

Nothing Elegant
"A charm a single charm is doubtful. If the red is rose and there is a gate surrounding it, if inside is let in and there places change then certainly something is upright. It is earnest."

The first sentence employs a form found repeatedly in Tender Buttons: a word followed, without punctuation, by a modification of that word. Instead of being placed in front, like an adjective or adverb, the modification calls attention to itself by trailing the word it modifies in an uncomfortable join. Often the modification swallows the word itself.

In this first sentence, the charm is emphasized as a single charm: a real, identifiable, graspable, countable charm...but it is "doubtful." It is negated, though uncertainly. The attempt to isolate and instantiate a single charm is found doubtful. The reader's desire for meaning is ultimately unsatisfied. This is even clearer "if inside is let in and there places change." "Inside" is not, of its essence, inside. Stein suggests it must be "let in." If objects do not contain their inside essences, then they are given meaning. And if it can be given, it can be taken away, which seems to be Stein's project here.

But she has an interesting notion of taking away, as exemplified in another instance of this familiar locution: "this means a loss a great loss a restitution." In subverting the desire for meaning, Stein offers at least some recompense: we gain a greater understanding of language when we understand the necessary dissolution of meaning.

But for me, this is the insight offered over and over again by so much postmodern literary criticism: yes, meaning is unachievable, thank you very much. What I value about (some) postmodern literary texts is missing in Stein's modernist one: a closer examination of the human wreckage of lost meaning. Meaningful or not meaningful, language is a medium of human communication and emotion. Tender Buttons is entirely devoid of people, probably because the blessed rage for order (if I may borrow the phrase), the human yearning for meaning, is too complicated to fit into the task of pointing out language's failure.

Philip Kuberski on Ezra Pound

Kuberski contends that Pound sought the type of objectivity in language that was unavailable due to Saussure's and Freud's destabilizations. Kuberski argues that Pound attempts to reverse this relativism and put language back together, recovering the foundation of language and its significance.

I appreciate Kuberski's text because he recognizes the ambivalence of Pound's aims. That is, Pound's desire for solidity and an unassailable grounding of language and culture is destabilized by his own poetic practice. Kuberski writes: "Pound can create an unrequited desire for resolution by each new fragment that necessarily delays it; desire for presence and origin is extended by each eruption of absence and citation" (8). So Pound's poetic technique is unequivocally "modernist" while it appears to reclaim all the stability undone by modernism.

Kuberski is particularly interested in what is specifically American about what he calls "the duplicity of the sign." This is an immensely intriguing phrase and I think it could be usefully applied to Pound's notion of the poetic image. Kuberski seems to use the term "duplicity" to mean an intended breakdown of unified meaning. He provides a quick tour of American literature to show how this duplicity arises and is fostered. It seems strange to me, however, that Kuberski suggests Pound works against this duplicity. I feel that Pound attempts to increase the disturbances in linguistic meaning in order to activate psychological meanings. Kuberski comes from the standard perspective which holds that Pound's Imagism sought objectivity and scientific clarity above everything. I'm not so sure I agree. Instead, Pound seems to prize the insights that come from destabilization.