==================================================
Satire, a genre with a long and distinguished history in Western and
particularly in English-language poetry, seems to be a type of verse which
has become obsolete: can anyone think of a significant and effective
satirical poem in English from the last fifty years? I could offer several
reasons for this, though not with much confidence. The traditional targets
of satirical poetry are: 1) political activities, 2) social class and
subculture differences, 3) sexual strategies, and 4) the literary style of
other poets. The prevailing political consciousness among our poetry
producing classes means that any levity of approach to the first three
topics will be damned with "That's Not Funny!", unless it's so obviously
moralistic that it's preaching to the choir, in which case it won't be good
satire, since to be effective a satirist has to speak as an outsider. And
the fourth topic is ruled out by the ubiquitous conspiracy of benignness in
the poetry world -- the feeling that "poetry is in a parlous state and we
have to be supportive,” which results also in an endless number of glowing
reviews of verse which is about as valuable, and about as skilled, as
singing in the shower. An interesting, and explosive, question is whether
for satire to be most effective we have at some level to recognize ourselves
its portrayals, but I'm not going to address that question on my own, since
I'm already running a risk of being denounced for what I've said so far.
(My dictionary includes no such word as "benignness, but I thought there
ought to be one so I invented it.)
==================================================
So I suppose I shouldn't be amazed that my light-hearted suggestion to post
bad poems turned into a political controversy. Satire always runs the risk
of being taken seriously, and the risk is enhanced by the fact that the most
effective satire is that which most closely conforms to its target. I once
made some people in an on line book discussion forum really upset by arguing
that the Lord of the Rings was a libertarian allegory of the dangers of
interfering with the free market -- at the climax, the crisis is resolved by
the INVISIBLE HAND of Gollum -- and they thought I was serious.
==================================================
Bad poetry is a genre which has its fans, though. There are several book
length anthologies of it, and The Random House Book of Parodies has a whole
section, much of it in verse, of "Self-Parodies -- Unconscious." In my
opinion this would include everything Swinburne ever wrote. (I suppose not
many here remember The Fugs' "Swinburne Stomp," surely one of the Monuments
of Western Civilization.)
==================================================
Actually, most Americans would look with comfortable affection on the Bush
quoted discussed here recently. Americans, like the Spartans of old, don't
trust people who can talk too good.
==================================================
Quote of the week:
Cracerum est dropsum rosseri slipare in snaedibus.
--
Melvinius
==================================================
Jon Corelis [log in to unmask]
http://www.geocities.com/joncpoetics
==================================================
_________________________________________________________________
The new MSN 8: advanced junk mail protection and 2 months FREE*
http://join.msn.com/?page=features/junkmail
|
