For Tuesday (3/16)

For Tuesday, finish reading Eliot’s “Waste Land.”

In his fantastic essay, “The Ecstasy of Influence,” the U.S. novelist, Jonathan Lethem declares: “Visual, sound, and text collage — which for many centuries were relatively fugitive traditions (a cento here, a folk pastiche there) — became explosively central to a series of movements in the twentieth century: futurism, cubism, Dada, musique concrète, situationism, pop art, and appropriationism. In fact, collage, the common denominator in that list, might be called the art form of the twentieth century, never mind the twenty-first. . . . it becomes apparent that appropriation, mimicry, quotation, allusion, and sublimated collaboration consist of a kind of sine qua non of the creative act, cutting across all forms and genres in the realm of cultural production.” (The whole essay is worth reading – – especially for its arguments about writers, readers, appropriation, and originality.)

Plagiarism – – in Lethem’s extended sense – – is obviously central to Eliot’s poem.  Let’s start a project of plagiarizing the plagiarist, i.e. indulging in the kind of creativity that Lethem (and Eliot) embrace.

For Tuesday, first, find a discrete fragment (a line or several lines typically) from “Burial of the Dead”  (the first section of Eliot’s poem) that you really like. For instance, I really like the phrase: “Unreal City.”  (I also like the phrase: “aheap of broken images” – – not a bad description of the poem itself.)  Write this phrase down.

Second, look for a similar fragment in the rest of the poem that seems to echo or repeat or recall your first fragment.  Write this phrase down.

Third, explain how these two images are similar and how they are different. How does the second fragment amplify features and meanings in the first fragment?  How does your second fragment add new meanings or dimensions to the first fragment? If you were writing a poem using these fragments, how would you arrange them?  What new images would you add to this new, plagiarized poem? (If I were writing a poem centered on the “unreal city,” for instance, I might add in some photographs from Camilo Jose Vergara‘s “New American Ghetto,”  an excerpt from Levine’s “They Feed They Lion,” and maybe the opening shot from the 2007 remake of I Am Legend or it’s 1971 predecessor – – Omega Man.)

Bring these notes to class on Tuesday, March 15.  The ultimate goal of this effort: to start you on your way to composing a completely plagiarized yet wildly creative and original poem.