Andrew Duncan, The Failure of Conservatism in Modern British Poetry, 2003,
Salt.
I read it once yesterday but didnt really extract anything new from it. So
today I start re-reading it in more depth to extract the relevant
historical/sociological perspective which I tended to skip over yesterday.
As to his criticism in places I agree and in places I disagree but that is
personal taste. No great harm there.
As someone with no literary background who came to poetry for psychological
reasons to minimise my contacts with the psychiatrists the majority of the
book is alien territory to my personal experience although I have learnt
about it over the years. But I feel the key to the book is in Andrew's
introduction which implies that if the past fifty years of ALL English
poetries was scrubbed (but I would allow Briggflats in) no great harm would
be done. That I would agree with.
So I wonder if other people have got round to reading the book yet and could
continue my education.
Douglas Clark, Bath, Somerset, England ....
Lynx: Poetry from Bath ......
... http://www.dgdclynx.plus.com/lynx.html
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