Postmodern Features in John Ashbery’s Poem “My philosophy of life”
Abstract
Postmodernism in literature challenges traditional notions of meaning, narrative coherence, and authorial authority, finding fertile ground in poetry for its embrace of ambiguity and fragmentation. John Ashbery’s “My philosophy of life” encapsulates these postmodernist traits, blending high cultural references with mundane details, and resisting the consolidation of ideas into a single philosophical system. While Ashbery’s work has been widely examined, focused analysis of how this poem enacts postmodernist strategies to critique and reimagine philosophical discourse remains underexplored. This study aims to analyze the poem through the lenses of fragmentation, metafiction, intertextuality, irony, and epistemological relativism, revealing its engagement with postmodernist aesthetics. The analysis identifies five defining features: narrative discontinuity, self-referential commentary on the act of philosophizing, juxtaposition of elevated and trivial subjects, ironic undermining of grand philosophical ambitions, and the valorization of uncertainty and interpretive “gaps.” These traits dismantle cultural hierarchies, reject metanarratives, and promote a playful, contingent approach to meaning. The study demonstrates how Ashbery transforms philosophical inquiry into an open-ended, sensory, and humorous practice, offering a nuanced contribution to the understanding of postmodern poetics. By reframing philosophy as a flexible, lived experience rather than a rigid system, the poem underscores the creative potential of ambiguity and positions itself as both a critique and an extension of philosophical thinking within late twentieth-century American literature.
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