> Nice formulation, Dave -- poetry as deviant language. Like it.
>
> But isn't there something cyclic about the shifting relationship of
language
> in poems to language in "ordinary" speech? The specialised language of
Old
> English poetry being followed by the simpler medieval lyrics. Wordsworth
> and the Romantics reacting against the specilisation of the language of
the
> post-Augustans with a call for "the real language of men". Most recently,
> the nineties folllowed by modernism followed by Auden then the Moment then
> ...
I'll resist the temptation to query the poetry of the 'Moment', Rob, but I'd
be wary against applying a simple scheme to the history of Old English
poetry, period. Robert Mannying (sp?) precedes the Gawayne Poet who is
contemporary with Langland etc etc
As for the Romantics, despite Wordsworth's formulaic call to arms, or
quills, one could hardly describe Keats as averse to specialised language or
poetics. But I see no clash between the natural, unfenced condition of
language, and sphistications of poetics, and simplicities like mediaeval
lyrics, where I do see a falsification is in that kind of poetry that
affects to be common sense and parlance but is in fact merely the dialect of
one tribe, to steal that phrase applied to Meredith, 'the Home Counties
posing as the Universe', as it were.
Best
Dave
----- Original Message -----
From: "Robin Hamilton" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Tuesday, August 28, 2001 3:09 PM
Subject: Re: While it is hushed
> > I still hold by, very much so, the grammatical disruptions of
'modernism',
> > for me they help lift poetry away from the threat of being merely
> > descriptive or anecdotal, and open 'voice' into 'voices'.
> >
> > Best
> >
> > Dave
>
> Nice formulation, Dave -- poetry as deviant language. Like it.
>
> But isn't there something cyclic about the shifting relationship of
language
> in poems to language in "ordinary" speech? The specialised language of
Old
> English poetry being followed by the simpler medieval lyrics. Wordsworth
> and the Romantics reacting against the specilisation of the language of
the
> post-Augustans with a call for "the real language of men". Most recently,
> the nineties folllowed by modernism followed by Auden then the Moment then
> ...
>
> Bit over-simplified on my part, I suppose, but just a thought.
>
> Robin
>
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