Periodization and Difference

While it is almost universally recognized that period terms are, at best, an arbitrary imposition on an otherwise dynamic system of human culture, and, at worst, as Foucault has argued, a means of controlling knowledge and consolidating power, their use is frequently defended because, it is claimed, they make difference apparent. This, however, is false. The treatment of the poetry of Frank O'Hara is analyzed in three recent literary histories to show that rather than make difference apparent, period terms obscure it by superimposing a predetermined schema that is inescapably reductive.