Charles Olson’s The Maximus Poems: a postmodern saturation epic

Abstract The idea behind this paper is that Charles Olson’s The Maximus Poems belongs to a single category that I shall term “postmodern saturation epic.” “Epic,” because of the themes, structures, and the characteristic markers of epic: seriousness and pathos; But “postmodern saturation,” because of the tremendous dimension of morphologically attentive experience reflecting the post-war revolutionary energies that replaced the already exhausted modernism. This paper takes as a point of departure pushing the literary to the conclusion that there exists a pre-history—Ancient East Mediterranean scholarship—which serves as a back-door to the postmodern American poet Charles Olson, who lies outside the whole Western thought tradition. The paper exhibits how Olson’s “postmodern saturation epic” epitomizes his backward-looking tribute to the Epic of Gilgamesh and the culture of its composition. The paper is not a comparative study between the Sumero-Akkadian World and postmodern world or between Gilgamesh and Olson’s Maximus. Rather, the emphasis on Gilgamesh and the culture of its composition or the ancient cultures that evoked Sumer is based on the general realization and Olson’s sensibility that Mesopotamia is the earliest cradle of civilizations and the antecedent of postmodern culture, as well as Olson’s retrospective homage to Gilgamesh. Based on Olson’s own theory of “saturation Job,” the paper shows The Maximus Poems’ high level of saturation of every atom of language and feeling with the sense of polis.