I think that I'm living proof that one needn't be tasteful to dislike
Plath's work. And I don't find all those who like her work distasteful,
only some of them.
There is such a thing as a difference of opinion. But apparently not in
Plath's case. Why should this be so?
At 07:15 AM 7/7/2000 +0100, you wrote:
>
>Jon Corelis wrote:
>
>> On one occasion I played the Plath's recording of Daddy to a woman of
>my
>> acquaintance who had never read it. As soon as it was over she
>> remarked, "What a nasty poem!"
>
>But of course. The main reason Plath is worth reading is that, as a real
>poet, she lacked taste. A lesser poet would have shared your sensitive
>friend's reaction, would have repressed the urge to write in tasteless
>unladylike, abnormal ways. Plath had the courage and integrity to write as
>she knew the world was, and damn tastefulness.
>
>Isn't there always a "Wound and the Bow" dimension to great poets? I think
>of Eliot, with the intellectual/moral courage to write the world as he felt
>it, not just stay inside the limitations of nice polite Georgian prosody.
>The cost of this was that part of what he expressed was his nasty
>anti-Semitism.
>
>It's not the job of the poet to be tasteful or comfy. It's the job of a poet
>to write and be damned. And there will always, as this Plath thread shows,
>be a long queue of tasteful people ready to do the damning.
>
>George
>______________________________________________
>George Simmers
>Snakeskin Poetry Webzine is at
>http://www.snakeskin.org.uk
>
>
>
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