----- Original Message -----
From: "David E. Latane" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Saturday, July 01, 2000 12:45 AM
Subject: Re: Logevity
>
>
> On Fri, 30 Jun 2000, domfox wrote:
>
> > Not - quite - to answer your question, I would say that a poet I have
> > discovered recently in an academic context (having to teach her work as
part
> > of a module on C19th women's writing) who seems to me to be seriously
> > underrated and deserving a great deal of attention is Augusta Webster. I
> > didn't need any persuading at all with her - I think she's better than
> > (Robert) Browning (this specific comparison because she wrote dramatic
> > monologues).
>
> Considering that she wrote in conscious imitation of Robert
> Browning, this is a whopper. I think you need to reread _Men and
> Women_ (2 vols, 1855) cover to cover, and then look at her _Dramatic
> Studies_ (1866) to get a full sense of her derivativeness.
But I think she *improves* on the "original" in certain respects (if she
falls short in others)...anyway, have you read Joanna Russ' "How To Suppress
Women's Writing"? Derivativeness indeed! Name one non-derivative poet, male
or female...
To be fair, I think that comparisons are probably invidious (didn't stop me
making them, but so). I was busily lining Webster's flair up against
Browning's faults (the memory of reading _The Ring and the Book_, cover to
cover, rather occludes for me the pleasures of reading some of Browning's
*shorter* verse). Will you let me have "better in some ways", if I concede
_Sordello_?
- Dom
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