Perloff，Marjorie.Infrathin：An Experiment in Micropoetics

In an interview I conducted in 2020，Marjorie Perloff said：“I feel that one can only understand contemporary poetry and poetics in the con‐text of earlier work” Marjorie Perloff，and FENG Yi，“Sound Poetry，Language Poetry，Conceptual Poetry，and Oulipo：An Interview with Professor Marjorie Perloff，” 4，no.1（2021）：158.，and when pointing out that the notion of a poem is derived from earlier work，Perloff also makes her well-versed analogy between painting and poetry.Perloff brilliantly and stunningly exempli‐fies her words in her latest book，：，published in September，2021，by University of Chicago Press.As an internationally prominent and influential literary critic and literary historian，with her unique and representative styles of fascinating analo‐gy，persuasive argumentation，and insightful revision，for many de‐cades，Marjorie Perloff has published numerous brilliant books of liter‐ary criticism on British and American poetry of the modernist and post‐modern period，taking the task of revitalizing literature and literary study as her great pursuit and greatly changing people’s ways of reading and writing.These efforts can be seen in her newbook aswell.

，as the preface says，was completed in 2020，during the apex of the coronavirus pandemic.The book is aimed at a“nonspecialist audience” Marjorie Perloff，（Chicago：University of Chicago Press，2021），xii.，which shows not only Perloff’s life-long pursuit ofmaking poetry—“Poetry with a capital P”—“captivating and indispensable”in people’s everyday life，but also her endeavor to cast new light on understanding poetry by an original method：micropoetics.The book begins with an engaging introduction，which firstly elaborates the origin and meanings of“infrathin”（），coined by Marcel Duchamp，the influential Dada artist，and then re‐lates the notions of painting and micropoetics.Art historian Erika Doss writes that Duchamp’s greatest contribution is his critical and intellectual spirit；he dismisses limited“retinal”qualities of art，focusing on the conceptual underpinnings of art and on radically broadening cultural parame‐ters. Erika Doss，（Oxford：Oxford University Press，2002），70.Perloff is so insightful that she sees Duchamp’s critique of retinal art has its radically intellec‐tual spirit which echoes with her pursuit of literary study.Duchamp is perhaps the most-frequently discussed artist in Perloff’s oeuvre.But this time Perloff goes even further by making infrathin the fundamental progenitor of her experiment of micropoetics and Duchamp’s dismissal of“retinal”qualities parallel to her criticism on the sole focus on semantics in understanding poetry.In Duch‐amp”s sense，infrathin means the most minute differences，which cannot be defined but only exem‐plified.By infrathin，Duchamp reveals how art can’t be duplicated even in the age of duplication—that the same is never the same at all；by borrowing Duchamp’s，Perloff tries to show to her readers that great poems，such as those discussed in this book，have particular verbal，visual，and sonic patternswhich are precisely put and can’t be replaced or altered evenwith infrathin differ‐ences.Making differences is more important than similarity in micropoetics，as Perloff puts it.As Perloff’s argument goes deeper and deeper，readers will be allowed to scrutinize clearly and thor‐oughly with her that the infrathin differences are not simply or solely semantic，but are differences created by unexpected relationships in an entanglement of verbal，visual，and sonic features in po‐etry—those mostly ignored by critics and readers in the past.As Perloff claims，micropoetics is“by no meansArt forArt’s Sake：the context—history，geography，culture—of a given poem’s concep‐tion and reception are always central” Marjorie Perloff，，xii..We see here that the focus of micropoetics is definitely not only the text itself.Close reading or infrathin reading in micropoetics is definitely divergent from close readings by New Criticism or Russian Formalism，which Perloff believes to be not pointedly close at all.An infrathin reading or a super-close reading，as Perloff argues，is“a reading for the vi‐sual and sonic as well as the verbal elements in a text，for the individual phoneme or letter as well as the large semantic import”.In this way，micropoetics stunningly revises and completes the formal criticism，placing the visual and sonic features of poetic languages on the foreground.In this sense，by bringing the inner multi-dimensions of a text—semantic，phonetic，visual，etymologic，and grammatical—closely together with its outer elements，namely the background of history，cul‐ture，and geography，infrathin reading is achieves a truly comprehensive methodology of reading and understanding poetry.

With her broad vision，expert knowledge，and linguistic mastery，Perloff fascinates her read‐ers with many enlightening and eye-opening ideas on how modernist poetry works and how to read poetry.Perloff’s argument in the first chapter，“ARose Is a Rose Is a Rrose Sélavy，”leaves the old conviction that Stein’s poetics derives from Picasso’s cubism far behind.Through Perloff’s persua‐sive and enthusiastic arguments，readers have an infrathin reading of Stein’s elliptical writings of the 1920s and 1930s，such as her“portrait”of Duchamp—and with convincing reasons Perloff con‐vinces us that the archetype of Duchamp’s alter ego Rrose Sélavy is Stein.Focusing on the sound of the poem in Chapter 2，Perloff continues to stun her readers by successfully relating Eliot’sto concrete poetry；in the third Chapter，by connecting the cultural and historical back‐ground of Pound’sclosely with the visual and sonic features of the poetic language in the poem，Perloff surprises us with a way to see howare so greatly written，especially focusing on their visual patterns，and the constellations of inner and outer dimensions of the po‐ems，that if we try with her，they can even be read backward，or even as I see，from whatever direc‐tions you like！At the end of this chapter，Perloff argues that Pound is the precursor of Brazilian Concrete poetry.In Chapter 4，Wallace Stevens’s poems are cast in a new light through an infrathin reading，rather than a philosophical reading in a traditional way；and Perloff juxtaposes Stevens’s poem“Vagrancy in the Park”with Susan Howe’s“Vacancy in the Park”to see how Howe meticu‐lously alters Stevens’s sound patterns to make new meanings and make them her own.In Chapter 5，“AWave of Detours”，I am fascinated by the unexpected alignment between John Ashbery and language poets Charles Bernstein and RaeArmantrout.Perloff’s arguments skillfully penetrate far and deep into the fabric of the obscure poetic languages of the poems by Ashbery，Bernstein，and Armantrout，to reveal their“family resemblance”，as well as the infrathin differences in meaning representation.In Chapter 6，Perloff studies the literary tradition of Samuel Beckett and W.B.Yeats，mostly focusing on“Texts for Nothing”to look for the shifting infrathin of views of Beckett onYeats.In the last chapter，Perloff returns toYeats who was the focus of her very first book；and as if reading him for the first time，Perloff gives an infrathin reading of Yeats and draws a new and striking conclusion：Yeats could be considered a precursor of later sound poets.Infrathin reading can be regarded as an exemplification of the intensified“differential reading”or“reading closely” Marjorie Perloff，“Introduction：Differential Reading，”in（Tuscaloosa：The University ofAlabama Press，2004），xi-xxxiv.proposed by Perloff in her book，，（2004）.In this new book，Perloff revisits and recalculates these ten canonical modernist or postmodernist poets under the new light of infrathin reading.The younger generations of poets are juxtaposed with the older ones，leading readers to new insights into these familiar poems by estranging and alienating them，and thus revitalizing meanings.

What is significant and groundbreaking about micropoetics is that it reflects a new insight into how poetry works or how poetic languages make meanings.Poetry，with a capital P，is no longer bound within the framework of semantics；the meanings in poetic language conveyed by phonet‐ics，etymology，and visual layout，which have been long ignored，are regarded as equally impor‐tant as its detachable meaning.Nor is Poetry bound by any particular feature of a text.Poetry is vi‐sioned as an indispensable part in an undivided whole of the world.What’s more，micropoetics works by seeing poetic language as related or undivided to other languages in art，especially paint‐ing and music.It is true that the communication among different languages in art has been shown in Perloff’s earlier writing.Butgreatly strengthens this perception of reading Poetry in the sense of macro-art，the totality of art.The quotations of sinologist Ernest Fenollosa—“relations are more important than the things related”—andWittgenstein’s“family resemblances”of languages in the book imply that the entangled relationships among different languages in artistic forms are in‐dispensable in micropoetics.In micropoetics，as if all facades of a language formed a constellation of meanings，readers are enabled to perceive the composition of sonic，visual，and semantic fea‐tures，all together with other elements outside the texts，to see the sparkling constellation of meaningsinmultiplicity and originality.

I argue that Perloff’s micropoetics，to a large extent，echoes Walter Benjamin’s view in“On Language as Such and on the Language of Man” Walter Benjamin，“On Language as Such and on the Language of Man，”in，vol.1，1913-1926，Cam‐bridge：The Belknap Press of Harvard University press，1996，62-74..In this essay，when talking about how to un‐derstand different artistic forms，Benjamin stresses the value of grasping them all as languages，with which micropoetics in macro-art resonates，to a large extent；Benjamin also indicates that the sound of human languages conveys magical and mental qualities of language：“The incomparable feature of human language is that its magical community with things is immaterial and purely men‐tal，and the symbol of this is sound”；this goes closely with Perloff’s recalculating on the acoustic feature of poetry.Additionally，Benjamin also puts emphasis on the visual feature of language，stressing that the language of art can be understood only in the deepest relation to the doctrine of signs.A good example of Benjamin’s view are hieroglyphic or ideogrammatic languages such as Chinese，which has its unique visual patterns.Some Chinese characters are pictoral，and some have a radical or a traditional recognized component，which either indicates the meaning or the sound of this character.Hence，the visual patterns，together with the acoustic and semantic fea‐tures，contribute to the meanings of this character.Although the English language is not hiero‐glyphic，it has its own unique verbal root，which leads to the kinship of words and languages；and poetic language has its unique visual layout，which needs to be studied so as to discover the mean‐ings of language.“Language as Such”is，as Benjamin says，a holy language，communicative as mental entity：“Language as such is the mental being of man.”But this holy language has long been lost，since the fall of humans，and has been indicated by Benjamin as the far but approachable destination for the purification and development of human language.Perloff views poetic lan‐guage as a communicative part in the totality of language and aims to reveal the mental entity of po‐etic language with emphasis on sound and visual aspects of language.All of this makes me believe that Perloff’s infrathin reading of micropoetics，in which linguistic，acoustic，etymologic，phonet‐ic，and visual patterns and cultural and historical elements are applied in understanding poetry，serves to reveal the mental entity of poetic language without staying on the superficial meanings and paradoxes in semantics.Indeed，poetic language is not“language as such，”but is a set of verbal signs with its unique acoustic and visual aesthetics，elaborately and magically chosen by poets.Benjamin reiterates that“language as such is the mental being of man，”and he does put emphasis on sound and visual patterns in communication to reveal meanings.What is interesting is that，for Benjamin，translation is a way to approach and regain the lost holy“language as such，”which is al‐so a factor in the continued life of literary works，while criticism is another lesser factor in the con‐tinued life of literary works.Yet，after reading，when recalling Benjamin’s comment that“all great texts contain their potential translation between the lines” Walter Benjamin，“The Task of the Translator，”，vol.1，1913-1926（Cambridge：The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press，1996），263.，I can’t help believing that all great texts also contain their potentialbetween，among，and in the lines.Perloff’s micropoetics endeavors to let the mental entity of great poetic texts be revealed in macro-art and languages，just as Benjamin appeals for regaining“language as such，”the mental entity of man，by claiming that translation and literary work are fragments of“the greater language”.With this new book，Perloff not only places the works of these great poets whom she loves under a new light，but also pushes literary criticismfurther ahead by giving us hope and enlightenment for the future.