On Thu, 28 Feb 2002 12:24:18 -0600, KENT JOHNSON
<[log in to unmask]> wrote:

>Erminia,

>versioning? And by the way, pastiche existed long before Eco, no?
>
>Kent


No, Kent, 'postmodernist' pastiche - which I was referring to -  existed
only 'after' The Name of the Rose.

Are we talking here about Authorship? It yes, then we dealing with
literary theories and history of literature with its movements, schools,
groups, authors.

And if we are dealing with ‘authorship’, this implies a rigorous account
of poetic techniques: what Movements and Groups  have introduced them, in
what year, and in which historical circumstances and to whom exactly a
given invention must be ascribed.

We would not ascribe to Sidney  the authorship of the (petrarchian sonnet,
because in fact it was invented by Petrarch and that’s why we call it so.)

 A poetic form is as much an invention as Volta's battery or Franklin's
electricity. It is a concrete object which comes out from given times and
motivations. The literary forms are more important even of their authors.

Yet, poetic forms, such as the sonnet’s form and its innovations, have
authors behind. And their  names must be clearly recorded down in our
literary anthologies.

It is just like when during an  exam, one student, having to comment on a
sonnet by Surrey's, comes out with an enthusiastic commentary of this
kind:
“Gosh, this poet is writing using a really peculiar form (then he vaguely
describes it). I is nice. I do not understand why so many people dislike
it…. Well, it strikes me as being more than interesting..> And Sidney is a
very good poet indeed.”

The other student will comment as follows: ‘In this poem , "Astrophil and
Stella", Sidney uses a Petrarchian style of sonnet writing , made of an
octave/sestet form, The petrarchian sonnet was invented by the Italian
poet of the Trecento, Petrarca and imitated throughout Europe and in
England’…(and so on.)

So, Emma's poems should be prized, of course, but also clearly described
as being indebted to Eco’s theory in The Open Work (1962) and most of all
to the two postmodernist Italian poets of the early Nineties, Mariano
Baino and Lello Voce –who are the 'inventors' and initiators of this
peculiar technique (Eco used it in the Name of the rose, Voce and Baino
and Cepollaro as well in poetry: there was a huge literary debate about
this innovation , in Europe and out of it,  I am sure you are all aware of
it).

Let me give you another example:
What if I came and said: “Hei, I have a friend of mine who is writing a
peculiarly interesting form of poetry: in which she describes situations
from dreams and visions, and she describes the sensation with no concern
for rational assemblage with the very chaotic and disconnected language
that one has in dreams. She is much criticized for doing so but I think
she is great and she is interesting…”

‘Wait a moment!’ the listener will say: ‘this friend of yours is  writing
in the path of (and here you MUST name the movement ) …the French
surrealists.

And one goes on: Let’s see, now, what she is doing ‘’AFTER’ (and here you
MUST give name) Breton and his (and here you MUST cite the second
manifesto) his theory (and here you MUST remember the date) of 1929.

No one before the Italian poets  Baino and Voce ever wrote poetry using
this kind of ‘assemblaggio’ or ‘ collage’ from other texts,

(which for example, has become  part of any decent creative writing course
in Italy and France, …I have at least every semester a couple of American
students at St Catherine ‘s Oxford who in my creative writing course
become found of practicing the postmodernist pastiche, since they just are
asked by me to go and make a collage from various texts and then
manipulate the material to make a personal poem: imagine how happy they
are to get away wit it….)

This is why I made a point. It should be said: Emma is using assemblaggio
after Eco’s theory, Baino, Voce (Gruppo ’93) and Balestrini (Gruppo ’63)
and she is good at it.
It must also be added that those who get annoyed with poor Emma for doing
so, for re-shaoping literary materials into a Italianesque postmodernist
poetry pastiche, evidently are not poetry experts, but only superficial
and uncultured readers.

So, we should not even bother to talk or quote them.


Erminia