SOURCE: "Languages of Post-Modernism," in Chicago Review, Vol. 27, No. 1, Summer, 1975, pp. 11-22.

In the following essay, Davidson examines some defining characteristics of postmodernism that have appeared in American poetry and art.

Aristotle tells the story of C ratylus, who became so infatuated with Heraclitean notions of flux and change that he proceeded to amend the famous statement, "No man steps into the same river twice," to the effect that 'no man can do it once.' His reasoning, apparently, was based on the fact that in the interval between the time that man touches the surface of the river and when his foot touches the bottom, the river has already changed. So committed was Cratylus to this view that he finally gave up speaking altogether (since to form words was to give a false image of permanence) and could be seen about the public square only waggling his...