Erminia:
>Trevor was right protesting, as I said to him, very right and also healthy
>rebellious.
You exhibit an unspeakable graciousness, ma'am. I am indeed fortunate
to have encountered such a wise yet firm guide at this formative
period in my education.
Perhaps, now that I have your attention, you could get around with a
question which seems to have escaped you yesterday:
>>But theoretical use of language about
>>language, that is metalanguage, is poetry at its highest, poetry that
>>criticizes itself and its powers. As in the case of Cavalcanti's 'Donna me
>>prega.'
>
>Are you suggesting that poetry which isn't explicitly
>self-referential is necessarily somehow deficient? This strikes me
>as a very perilous generalization. (In fact most generalizations
>about poetry strike me as highly dodgy.) Anyhow, you seem to imply
>that metalinguistic usage is in itself enough to produce 'poetry at
>its highest' (whatever that might be), which is certainly untrue in
>my experience; some of the most turgid stuff I've encountered in
>contemporary poetry seems to labour under precisely this impression.
>And have you sufficient familiarity with poetry in other languages
>to justify so sweeping a judgement? What about Du Fu? Basho? Daibhi
>O Bruadair? Homer? The world's traditions of 'folk poetry'?
Else my newly fostered spirit of rebellion might suggest to me that
you're talking nonsense.
Say it isn't so!
Trevor
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