POST MODERN

AMERICAN LITERATURE
Summary of Oblivion by Lyn Hejinian
Lyn Hejinian
• American poet, essayist, translator and publisher
• Founding figure of the language poetry movement of 1970s
• Influential force in the experimental and Avant-garde poetics
• Poetry characterized by an unusual lyricism and descriptive engagement
• Author of many poetry collections including “My Life and My Life in the Nineties”
• “The Book of a Thousand Eyes”, “The Fatalist” and “My Life”
Title of the Poem
 The title suggests the picture of post-modern man .
 Oblivion is a state of being disregarded or
Forgotten.
 The title shows the doubts and suspicions of post
Modern man.
 Through the poem, poetess is showing her own
feelings, emotions, dreams and trying to identify
her surroundings.
Synopsis of the Poem
◦ The poetess is trying to present her subjective observation and feelings about her
surroundings.
◦ The poetess is surrounded by noises and sounds. Everything seems in the clouds of doubts
and suspicion. The poem also tells us about the harsh realities of time and death.
Postmodern man has become senseless that’s why he is cruel and jealous towards humanity
and nature. In short, poem also represents that a woman can well convey her dreams,
memories and feelings of love and anger than a male. The poetess has feministic, as well as
post-modern approach in this poem. As, if one goes through the poem in deeper meanings,
one can find feministic elements i.e.
◦ ‘But a woman could have through it’
◦ ‘Woman had expressing anger and sex, then dream and sleep’
◦ As the above-mentioned lines shows, poetess advocate feminism. According to the
poetess, just only women can better understand feelings like anger and sex than opposite
gender.
◦ Repetition of the word “I”, “Me” and “My”
◦ ‘A nightmare in a failure of Oblivion’
◦ The tone of poem is satirical, criticizing the societal norms and standardization through
the lens of a female.
◦ Hejinian has consciously used the subjective lens of the other side of binary to let
people see the world from a different angle.
◦ Use of ‘Intertextuality’ ‘I’m not the center of what I don’t know’
◦ She has condemned the traditional meaning of ‘Goodness’
“We will become good by doing no harm? – it’s a lie!”
Conclusion
◦ The poet has used her personal state of suspicion about everything surrounds her.
◦ She looked upon things with feeling of disbelief.
◦ She has criticized modern man conception of beauty and good.
We think of beauty
We lose a battle
we are very cruel