거트루드 스타인과 언어시인의 서술 기법 비교―모더니즘과 포스트모더니즘의 경계에서

Abstract

This paper explores the literary level of meanings in Gertrude Stein’s Tender Buttons and some of L=A=N=G=U=A=G=E Poetry, which seem to have no profound meaning and literary seriousness in a traditional poetic sense. Due to their unconventional syntax structures and use of grammar, they have been studied academically, and yet, not for their “poetic” significance. However, unlike most critics’ conclusion that their writings are not for understanding, these texts aim two different goals and have two different narrative methods. This can be explained in terms of modernism and postmodernism. For Stein and some of language poets, such as Susan Howe and Lynn Hejinian, writing style and the meaning of a sentence work differently. First, Stein’s narrative style is to paint an object as a whole, using multiple points of view and three-dimensional structures. This is to visualize the possibility of relative knowledge, and to reflect the writer’s changing consciousness during the writing process. On the other hand, language poets try to show how history is written and settles down as a universal knowledge in the world. They throw questions on the fixed notion of history and the use of language through their preposterous, shocking, and sometimes weird narrative style, which contributes to proving how uncertain “a history” can be, or everything is. The works of Stein and language poets represent the theory of relativity and the uncertainty principle respectively by breaking down the poetic discourse system of the past and establishing their own art of narrative. This will set the theoretical fundamentals for academical and literary research on their texts.