ABSTRACT
In formal terms, Ashbery’s experiments with repetition range from conventionally determined repetitions, as in the forms of sestinas, canzone’s or pantoums, through the less patterned repetitions of words, phrases, syntactical structures, figures and themes, to such effects as are produced by imperfect rhyme, homonyms or paraphrase. The significance of repetition as it structures our thinking and as it structures a poetic text is sometimes explicitly addressed:
In a wave-like movement of turning it’s logic back upon itself the argument here turns on a series of subordinate “and yet” clauses. These lines from Ashbery’s “Litany” argue: repetition deprives an act of its originality (since other acts that are the same will follow); and yet it does not detract from the “spiciness” of an act/idea, and in fact makes it meaningful by absorbing it in an on-going endeavor to fend off the “fear of happening just once” (fear of the end, fear of closure or death); as the significance of each new act (event, idea) gets absorbed in a broader context, repetition diminishes its momentary significance and puts in perspective its self-important claim to uniqueness. In describing a “high” moment, a moment of revelation, which is, at the same time, realized as only one in a succession, these lines attempt to deal with the gap between the two poles of originality (or uniqueness) and, on the other hand, sameness (or repetition). We need to perceive the two at once: “originality” should not lure us away from the awareness of repeatability which, however, should not take away the significance of the individual moment itself. These lines argue that nothing is free from repetition. At the same time, far from depriving an act of usefulness, repetition is what makes it meaningful. It is the awareness that an act (an idea) is unique and repeatable at the same time that gives meaning to the very act (idea).2 Ultimately, the repetitive revelations need to be placed in the context of time, which drains their “originality.” The final lines of the quoted passage are themselves a brilliant repetition in the form of a pun. The play on “not men in a word” (which can be read as “not manly (or human)” but at the same time may suggest a type of epitaphic divorce from voice) both implies the draining context of passing time and enacts a repetition which is the poem’s new moment of spiciness.
