tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5349472.post2383728697761386234..comments2024-03-28T14:22:37.153-07:00Comments on mole: A History of English Poetry, Chapter Three: The Big BattalionsDalehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14523194846272870013noreply@blogger.comBlogger7125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5349472.post-48220788312158778112011-06-26T19:55:04.765-07:002011-06-26T19:55:04.765-07:00Dale, I have been wandering about in your history ...Dale, I have been wandering about in your history and enjoying it very much...<br /><br />I find myself agreeing even where I disagree--or perhaps I mean questioning where I might agree. <br /><br />One thing that always strikes me: there are all sorts of things that we can't really know with clarity. If you think about all those gentlemen who did many other things but wrote poetry as well in the Renaissance and seventeenth century, well, there must have been hordes of them who wrote the occasional poem but nothing now remains, either because it was not much good or because of mice or some other thing. <br /><br />I mean, what if Chidiock Tichbourne hadn't had the bad luck to be hanged? Then we wouldn't have his pre-death poem, which is really the only thing we remember of his in the way of poetry...<br /><br />Chaucer is perfectly wonderful, and one of the most fun things I ever did when teaching many eons ago was to read and translate Chaucer aloud with sophomores. But I have to say that the Gawain poet affected my imagination a great deal, and that I have a lot of poems that have some kind of genesis in the Green Knight or in some passage from that poem. And I can even think of a passage in one of my novels that is rooted in that poem. And I think the "fertility" of a poet is some measure of his importance... (And history plays a part--the whole idea of the green man is in resurgence.)<br /><br />And of course "fertility" is part of what you're getting at with Dickinson. It is fruitful for us to encounter her. She has been good pollen for a long time, whereas we are still opening flowers in a mass of others.marly youmanshttp://www.thepalaceat2.blogspot.comnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5349472.post-69153981930412717512011-06-19T14:43:10.734-07:002011-06-19T14:43:10.734-07:00Lucy, it's your encouragement that keeps me go...Lucy, it's your encouragement that keeps me going!<br /><br />Jayne, there's tens of thousands of them. We'll never know. It's a sobering thought.<br /><br />Melanie, it makes a huge difference. It's what brought me to read contemporary poetry -- being able to converse with the poets.<br /><br />Thanks all!Dalehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14523194846272870013noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5349472.post-52286399874945583552011-06-19T10:36:45.611-07:002011-06-19T10:36:45.611-07:00I fear I am about to sound like an idiot. I'm ...I fear I am about to sound like an idiot. I'm uneducated on literature. <br /><br />But it makes a difference to me to be able to read someone and tell them a turn of phrase moved me deeply. When writers like Chaucer were writing for an audience of one, that interaction was present. I'm not knocking Emily, I haven't read her carefully enough to have a real opinion. But it has meant so much to me to be able to send you or a few others whose work I love a comment. It changes a dynamic of reading for me. It makes it less lonely.Melaniehttp://bloodmysteries.comnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5349472.post-91348706260258604442011-06-17T16:47:06.047-07:002011-06-17T16:47:06.047-07:00What strike me here is my curiosity about those po...What strike me here is my curiosity about those poets and writers who haven't been heard, who never had the opportunity to be heard given the biases and cultural and social edicts of their time.<br />Lucy makes a good point--In this century, publishing can be immediate, talent can be found with the stroke of a hand. I wonder how many talens have been lost to history.<br />I know this, Dale, you are meant to be read.Jaynehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06694559900539722616noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5349472.post-11936860386385152002011-06-15T12:32:23.064-07:002011-06-15T12:32:23.064-07:00I await these eagerly and gobble them up as if fam...I await these eagerly and gobble them up as if famished, but then feel timorous about commenting, at least about being the first to do so. <br /><br />I think I tend to agree with you about great poets against the great men (sic, or perhaps non, was it Carlyle?), but I'm not sure it still applies - I think you've written along the those lines yourself, that the times of a few who were fortunate enough to have both talent and opportunity to become great have passed, everytihg is wider and more diverse and fragmented. <br /><br />I'm not sure they were always exactly comfortable, not in their skins anyway, if they were materially. Yes they were white and male. Chaucer may not have ended very comfortably at all, they say.<br /><br />I wondered in the previous post where Gawain/Pearl fitted in. To me, they are more mediaeval in the sense of happeing somewhere other, of existing somewhere else, where it's interesting to wander,but always elusive and remote. With Chaucer though I sometimes have difficulty remembering he was medieval at all, he seems so warm and solid and direct. But both have a playfulness, a merriment even, which the Anglo-Saxon lacked. Not much merrimeent in Langland either come to that.<br /><br />Impressions though, sketchily informed and imperfectly remembered. Please keep these up.Lucyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09764296105901909328noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5349472.post-13353231836696969642011-06-15T08:31:25.386-07:002011-06-15T08:31:25.386-07:00Thanks! I trip over my shoelaces a lot, thinking a...Thanks! I trip over my shoelaces a lot, thinking about this stuff :-)Dalehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14523194846272870013noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5349472.post-29587376713701757452011-06-15T04:57:42.967-07:002011-06-15T04:57:42.967-07:00interesting mix of thinkinginteresting mix of thinkinglucychilihttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06519163424062626658noreply@blogger.com