Saturday, February 4, 2017

What literary devices does Gregory Corso use in "America political historia, in spontaneity"?

Although the poem “America Politica Historia, in Spontaneity,” by Gregory Corso, from his 1961 book, Elagaic Feelings American, is not written in any traditional or classic form, it still employs several literary devices. The poem is all one stanza and uses a “stream of consciousness” style; stream of consciousness is a technique of writing that aims to capture the natural flow of a speakers’ thoughts and sensory impressions, often with run-on or leaping thoughts and sentences, offbeat syntax, or even incorrect grammar.
Other tools used by Corso include epiphora, which is when words or phrases are repeated at the end of a line—in this poem, Corso repeats "America" and "American" several times—and anaphora, which is when words repeat at the start of a line. In this poem, “I am” appears three lines in a row. This poem is also notable for its varied use of punctuation, most especially its exclamation marks, em dashes, and question marks.

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