Rupert,
Thanks so much for this full response. I thought the Coleridge School
project sounded fascinating too and I look forward to hearing it on the
eventual webcast.
My academic training was practical critical and it is still a big part of my
bread and butter, which is not to say that I am not sometimes very uneasy
with the world-view it promulgates and what it excludes. If readers or
students "click" with the formalist mentality quickly, then they can usually
move on from there to creative responses, and for those readers the
deadening effects of practical criticism do not seem too pernicious. If
they struggle to see the point of it, or have the view that it "kills"
poetry (too often dismissed out of hand by educators in particular) then the
results are disastrous. I'm often dismayed by the contorted, formulaic
responses I receive from students of poetry and I think there must be a
better way to approach this. My view is an institutionalised one, I know
that, and it mightn't resonate with those of you whose primary engagement
with poetry is not in an "educational" (heh!) capacity, which is one of the
reasons I'm asking the question, to find out more about how people outside
the academic pale or plantation look on close reading. Close reading always
seemed exciting to me, and I was very lucky in my teachers and mentors, but
as I see its effects on students in particular I feel disillusioned and
wonder perhaps how to do my bit to revivify it.
Best wishes,
Kit
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