Mechanical Form and Avant-Garde Aesthetics
Mechanical Form and Avant-Garde Aesthetics
This chapter expounds on the concept of “hybrid” or “new consensus” poetry, discussed in Chapter 2. As an influential contemporary variety of verse, one could call hybrid poetry the new mainstream. But such a label would be misleading since it is neither ubiquitous nor universally esteemed. Marsilius of Padua invokes the concept of the valentior pars (weightier part) in understanding the poetry. The weightier part of a community is that portion which possesses sufficient quantity, quality, and prominence to stand out from the heterogeneous remainder. Similarly, hybrid poetry has visibility and prestige that extend across the divides that characterized the late-twentieth-century poetry scene. It also lends itself to being celebrated as the latest protagonist in a long-unfolding, easily taught storyline concerning formal innovation and the fate of the lyric.
Keywords: hybrid poetry, Marsilius of Padua, new consensus poetry, contemporary verse, weightier part, valentior pars
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