The Martian School: Toward a Poetics of Wonder

The paper juxtaposes the Martian poetics of defamiliarization with metaphysical conceit on the one hand, and the notion of saturated phenomenon, introduced in contemporary philosophy by Jean-Luc Marion, on the other. The preoccupation with the novelty of experience in the works of Craig Raine and Christopher Reid corresponds with the developments in contemporary phenomenology which analyzes the excess of intuition over intention. The effect of surprise and amazement is embedded in poetic epiphanies characteristic of the Martian school of poetry.