초록 열기/닫기 버튼
Yong-Mi ChoiWilliams’ Paterson is an epic attempt to embody an American identity by lifting local realities to a new cultural order. The poet-persona tries to find “beauty” through the synthesis of all the binary oppositions by juxtaposing poetry and prose in various forms of collage. But the reality introduced by prose repeatedly subverts and decomposes the synthesis imagined by the poet himself. In the process of repeating compositions and decompositions, the poet comes to realize that the beauty, “radiant gist,” will be unexpectedly revealed by the dissonance of poetry and prose, if it is handled by creative imagination accompanied by patience and love. This is a new kind of form or beauty defying the imposed authority, which, however, cannot insist on the finality. So the poet’s form or discovery is only a momentary accomplishment and should always be ready to open to a revision. As a result, the text fails to achieve the synthesis the poet intended, but succeeds in opening up toward the multiplicity and dynamic change of reality. The textual aesthetics of Paterson implies that the American cultural identity also cannot be fixed or unified in a final definition. The aesthetics of Paterson makes readers aware of the necessity of constant self-revisioning and tolerance of diversity, which implies pragmatic solutions for America where heated arguments are still ongoing between multicultural desires and the need for a cultural unity.
키워드열기/닫기 버튼
Paterson, Collage, Dissonance, Antagonistic Cooperation, Composition and Decomposition
