Abstract expressionism and Raymond Roussel in the poetry of John Ashbery

Abstract

Expressionism and Raymond Roussel in the Poetry of John Ashbery John Ashbery is the epitome of the postmodern poet and he reflects in his writings a variety of influences. These are an inherent part of the understanding and appreciation of his poetry but also informative about his attitude to the literary canon: more precisely, they are testimonies of his attraction to avant-gardes and minor and marginal authors. Two representatives of these have been selected for detailed comparison. The first is the second generation of Abstract Expressionists associated with the 1950s New York School of poetry of which Ashbery became a prominent member. The second is the French obscure proto- surrealist Raymond Roussel. The thesis compares several formal aspects of Ashbery's poetry with their respective techniques with a view to elucidate the workings and attitudes behind Ashbery's singular style. Abstract Expressionists were chosen due to Ashbery's long engagement with visual arts criticism and the already-mentioned fact of their shared milieu of the New York School. The comparison, based on Charles Altieri's 1988 article "John Ashbery and the Challenge of Postmodernism in the Visual Arts," distinguishes two main parallels between the visual and linguistic material: a treatment of language similar to collaging..