The problem of “sincere” utterance in post-conceptual poetry

The article addresses the problem of the re-actualization of the personal utterance in post-conceptualist poetry. This re-actualization occurs largely through an appeal to the notion of sincerity, which had been called into question by the artistic movement that preceded post-conceptualism – conceptualism. The author traces broader cultural shifts in the interpretation of sincerity, taking place under the influence of the structuralist tendency in the humanities. These shifts are connected to the condition of postmodernity as described by Jean-François Lyotard. It is shown how they led to a conceptualist suspicion directed toward sincerity and related notions, and how they shaped the aesthetics of this artistic movement. The author conducts an analysis of texts in which the renewed perception of conceptualist suspicion leads poets to a different way of engaging with it: D. Sukhovey’s poem “Russian Melancholy” (2001) and D. Davydov’s “A Peasant Shouts under the Window” (2022). In such poems, the subject demonstrates a tendency to employ conceptualist strategies in new ways and displays an orientation toward rethinking the overall outcomes of conceptualism as an artistic movement.

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