Poetics and Metamodernism: A Critique of Billy Collins Litany

Author(s) : Momal Afzal Alvi , Aisha Umer

Abstract:

Metamodernism is described as a progressive shift in philosophy, art and culture which has evolved from postmodernism. It is a recent paradigm in critical and cultural theory. As a critical/cultural sensibility, metamodernism is considered to be both a new approach to literary composition and a method for analysing and researching literary works for academic study. The current article examines and assesses metamodernism as an efficient tool to gauge its fundamental characteristics in poetics and attempt to apply them to the interpretation of the poem Litany by Billy Collins, an American poet. Although the references are employed to the prominent standpoints of metamodernism, the primary model that will be employed for analysis of the poem is that of Timotheus Vermeulen and Van den Akker pioneered in their groundwork, Notes on Metamodernism (2010). The findings of the study reveal that the poem lacks the ideal balance of modernism, the fragmentation of postmodernism, and possesses the oscillatory motion of metamodernism which mediates between the former two stances, thus implanting the novice perception of “New Sincerity”.
Keywords: Metamodernism, Postmodernism, Paradigm Shift, New Sincerity, Neo-romantic sensibility