Context is all: the language games of Charles Bernstein

Resumo

Charles Bernstein, the founder of the Language Poetry movement, is one of our leading poet-theorists, but his poetry is often considered to be incomprehensible—too difficult. In this essay, I argue that when one reads Bernstein in the light of Wittgenstein, whose philosophy Bernstein knew well, he emerges as quite accessible – and wholly delightful – as a poet. Wittgenstein taught us that “the meaning of a word is its use in the language” and hence context is all. When one reads Bernstein commonsensically, understanding that “ordinary language is alright,” as Wittgenstein said, we can understand Bernstein’s satire and parody and his “language games” quite well. My example is the long poem “Lives of the Toll Takers” together with some later short love songs and ballads.