Black Mountain Poetics and Fredric Jameson’s Floating Signifier Theory

Document Type : Original Article

Authors

1 Ph.D. Candidate of English Language and Literature, Kharazmi University, Tehran, Iran.

2 Associate Professor, Department of English Language and Literature, Kharazmi University, Tehran, Iran.

Abstract

This study examines how The Maximus Poems by Charles Olson and The Opening of the Field by Robert Duncan build on Fredric Jameson’s critique of pastiche, offering a more immediate and engaged model of postmodern writing. Drawing on Jameson’s reading of Lacan—particularly his use of schizophrenia as a way to describe the breakdown of the signifying chain in late capitalism—the research explores how both poets confront the fragmentation of language and its absorption into commodified culture. Olson’s projective verse emphasizes presence and locality, while Duncan’s layered syntax and mythic references resist fixed interpretation and invite open-ended exploration. The study uses close reading and theoretical interpretation to show how both poets turn poetic form into a site of resistance, where language—though fractured— still carries meaning and shapes how we see the world. In Jameson’s terms, these works function as “symbolic texts,” where personal expression and social contradiction intersect. Rather than mirror postmodern disorientation, the poems open up a space for a different kind of awareness—one that moves through the tension between imagination and structure, and points toward the hope and possibility woven into poetic form. 

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References

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History

  • Receive Date: 08 April 2025
  • Revise Date: 28 June 2025
  • Accept Date: 17 August 2025

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