On Fri, 21 Apr 2000, Robin Hamilton wrote:
> David:
>
> > I'd agree--but ad that the "Ode" version adds another layer of
> > intertextuality precisely because it is an "Ode."
>
> A definite point! And it could be extended to two layers (at least) of
> intertextuality -- to the tradition of the Ode generally, and in calling up
> (except that it's much more difficult to see this in the later versions)
> Wordsworth's ODE on the Intimations of etc., that provided the initial
> "occasion" of Coleridge's poem.
>
> > Holmes in Coleridge:
> > Early Visions does a nice compare and contrast: "The movement of the
> verse
> <SNIP>
>
> Indeed and indeed. If it's not too much of a cop-out, maybe we're faced
> with two distinct poems?
>
I was just thinking the same thing. The "Ode" as published in the
newspaper is the first version of "Dejection: An Ode," and here I
definitely prefer the final version. The "letter" is a different kind of
poem, out of which the "Ode" was quarried--and since they have different
aims (as well as several hundred different lines!) they should be
considered two different poems.
Best,
David Latane
[log in to unmask]
%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
|