ABSTRACT
The concluding chapter recapitulates the ways in which twenty-first-century collages by David Markson, Maggie Nelson, Jenny Offill, Lance Olsen, Graham Rawle, David Shields and Steve Tomasula meet the following formal criteria: the use of heterogeneous, fragmentary and conflicting components; the disruption of linear plot development; and the incorporation of a sizeable proportion of appropriated material. The section demonstrates how differences within the poetics of collage involve a divergence in their politics: the emphasis placed on the act of cutting and fragmentation reinforces the notion of collage as critique, whereas the focus on gathering fragments and reassembling them into a whole evokes the nostalgic capacity of collage. The section goes on to consider how twenty-first-century collage compares to its earlier employment. On the thematic level, it is argued, the angst about the political, ecological and technological developments is currently more prevalent than in twentieth-century literary collages. Contemporary examples are also considerably more polyphonic and multimodal, which can be attributed to the rise of digital culture and the challenge of electronic literature. The chapter concludes by suggesting that collage has become a realist vehicle, perfectly suited to convey the chaos and information overload of twenty-first-century experience.
