Postmodernism: Poetic Chaos and Self-Fulfillment in Philip Whalen's Selected Works

Abstract

   Through an overlook of postmodern American literature, it becomes clear that the most prominent feature of the era is to change the literary view of works, and poetry was the first to be tackled differently during postmodernism. Postmodern poetry is known for breaking verse in order to speak in the speech of the American idioms which Philip Whalen mastered after a long time of experiment and revision. The poet set himself on the task to break the barriers between readers and their being via fragmented language. He benefited from his experience in traditional forms of verse when he was working with high school literary magazines. Hence, the current paper claims that this poetic chaos is deliberate to imitate a rather new society, totally inclusive in opinions and perspectives.