Dear Trevor,
Thank you. Your quite right-the Hektor poem is more emphatically
about/against a traditon of epic, and that probably isn't the most
accurate way to think about Advent. I am trying to think of how the
Modern long poem can be understood in relation to epic, not through any
imperial/Virgilian tone or significance, but more as a certain ambition
of scope and design (or more negatively as the difference to lyric and
the dramatic?) I don't think Coffey set out to write an epic, but Advent
seems the sort of long poetic labour that might be conceivaby have
replaced the epic form in our time?
Best wishes
Jim
(apologies if this cross-posted)
|