Poetry for Students, Volume 35

of the groom’s suit. Intimacy of warm cheeks
and the comforts of home serve to leaven the
somewhat bleak scene and elicit a sense of hope
within the poem. The poet’s use of sensory
imagery makes the poem more vivid and serves
to ground readers in reality before shifting the
focus to the more philosophical considerations
of the closing stanza.

Historical Context

Postmodernism
Although dates for this movement are difficult
to pinpoint, it is generally believed the post-
modernism began in the post-World War II
era (early 1950s) as a cultural reaction to

objective and/or scientific explanations of real-

ity. This artistic movement was reflected in cul-

tural and literary commentary, art, literature,

and architecture. In postmodern literature,

writers asserted that reality cannot be the one

and the same for all individuals. These authors

rejected universal explanations that could be

applied across cultures, races, and religious

sects. Instead, they explained that a true under-

standing of reality comes through individual

beliefs about what the world means and each

person’s place in it. Some postmodernist

authors chose to create parodies of the quest

for such meaning. Postmodernist writers also

favored tangible experiences rather than

abstract ideas. Although Milosz often took a

metaphysical rather than concrete approach to

his subject matter, he was influenced by

COMPARE

&

CONTRAST

 1990s:Metaphysical poetry with its para-

doxical imagery and cerebral wit is written

in the late twentieth century, including

Milosz’sProvinces(1991),Selected Poems

of Yehuda Amichai(1996), and From the

Devotionsby Carl Phillips (1998).

Today:Scholars recognize that the main goal

of metaphysical poetry of the seventeenth

century is similar to that of contemporary

writers—the desire to comprehend significant

political, religious, and scientific advance-

ments. Publications such asContemporary

Poetry and Contemporary Science(2006), by

Robert Crawford, andAmerican Poets of the

Twenty-first Century(2007), edited by Clau-

dia Rankin and Lisa Sewell, examine the role

of modern poets as they continue to scrutinize

cultural and political shifts.

 1990s:Milosz’s Gnostic interest in souls as

independent from matter is grounded in his

religious studies during his secondary educa-

tion. The expression of this interest surfaces

in ‘‘In Music’’ and other poems included in

Provinces. However, literature of the Gnostic

movement is thought to be non-existent by

the end of the fifth century and is not a pop-

ular scholarly subject for study. A renewed

interest in its tenets occurs in the late twenti-

eth century with the findings of an ancient

Gnostic library located in Nag Hammadi,

Egypt, and Gnostic literature, specifically

the Gospel of Judas, in El Minya, Egypt.

Today:Several Gnostic churches exist in the

United States, including the Ecclesia Gnos-

tica in Los Angeles, led by Stephen A. Hel-

ler. Heller also oversees the Gnostic Society,

which promotes the creeds of Gnosticism by

maintaining the Gnosis Archive, a Website

devoted to documenting source materials on

Gnosticism (past and present). In popular

culture, elements of Gnostic beliefs surface

in New Age cults, as a result of the 1987

Harmonic Convergence (planetary align-

ment of sun, moon, and six of eight planets)

and continues in the twenty-first century.

In Music