I got all of them Mark,
Roger
----- Original Message -----
From: "Mark Weiss" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Saturday, April 16, 2005 2:24 PM
Subject: Re: Shakespeare, Olson &c
For reasons that escape me, fairly often messages I send to poetryetc make
it into the archive but not into other listmembers' computers. Makes one
feel occasionally marginalized in discussion. Case in point, a message
sent last night: "Ron's there with the obvious , for a change. Olson's
master's thesis Lear and Moby Dick (published in two parts in the first two
issues of the magazine Twice a Year in 1938) became his first book, Call
Me Ishmael (City Lights, 1947, and several reprints, and Johns Hopkins,
1997). He also wrote about Shakespeare's late verse, not surprisingly
finding it a lot like his own. Someone will have to help me with the name
of the essay, all of my things being entombed in storage.
No reason you should know this, Alison, but Ron certainly does. Would have
been nice if he'd mentioned his sources."
Since then I came up with the name of the essay (also sent this to the
list): "Quantity in Verse, and Shakespeare's Late Plays."
Someone let me know if this comes through.
Mark
At 05:51 AM 4/16/2005, you wrote:
>Well, Olson goes on about Shakespeare quite a bit in *Call Me Ishmael*. I
>hadn't thought of looking at his poetry in that light, though. (I haven't
>looked at Silliman yet.) As far as Shakespeare books are concerned, the one
>that I've read in recent years that really got me humming was Michael D.
>Bristol's *Big-time Shakespeare*, covering an awful lot of topics, from The
>Stationers Company to *The Sandman*, Bakhtin to Branagh, early modern
>Christmas to *Calvin & Hobbes*.
>What version of Shakes is this NEA going to disseminate? Mrs Grundy's? I
>only ask because one's heard a lot about school board censorship etc in the
>States. I'm a little sceptical about Shakes "generating" anything - can't
>see much evidence of that in contemporary Britain, perhaps I'm missing
>something. I dare say a few fundamentalist freaks have read Shakespeare -
>*their* way. - Interesting that Creeley, at least during his youth,
>couldn't get started (I'm broken-hearted) with Shakes at all, at least
>according to his early correspondence with Olson. - Shakespeare a Lutheran?
>I thought Purgatory was a no-no under the protestant dispensation, and
>everyone is always going on about the Shakespeares' Catholic connections.
>Robin, no doubt, will clear this up.
>mj
>
>Alison Croggon wrote:
>
>>Ron Silliman (http://ronsilliman.blogspot.com/) has a most interesting
>>meditation on the NEA program to bring Shakespeare to the American masses
>>and its possibly unpredictable effects, given that two American writers
>>deeply influenced by WS are Melville and Olson. Dang it, he's right...
>>Though I hadn't made the Olson connection - Silliman's idea of soliloquy
>>rather than "dramatic monologue" in Olson (maybe in a lot of modern
>>poetry)
>>seems particularly apt.
>>
>>"So much of Olson reads as tho it were written to be shouted out over a
>>heath, or else to be whispered to an audience, a stage whisper capable of
>>reaching hundreds of ears at once. It is not so much dramatic monolog
>>tho
>>Maximus is a persona as it is soliloquy. Olsonšs sense of how a sentence
>>interacts with the line something I suspect an entire generation or two
>>has internalized so deeply we donšt even recognize it has always struck
>>me
>>as coming right out of Shakespeare, far more than from Melville or Pound.
>>This feel for the materiality of the relationship between the two is
>>apparent, right there on the surface, in Olson, & through his influence it
>>radiates outward. I can hear echoes in Creeley, in Duncan or Levertov, in
>>OšHara & Whalen & even in Ginsberg. And it ripples again, just a little
>>more
>>faintly, through every one of us influenced by any of them.
>>
>>"So the idea of all these people reading, seeing, hearing Shakespeare is,
>>I
>>suspect, much more of a wild card than the NEAšs leaders may comprehend.
>>Because where it wonšt lead is back to is either the homogenous
>>retro-utopia
>>of so many a Congressmanšs dream nor to the same ol š stuff the School of
>>Quietude has been shoveling. Inseminating Shakespeare into the American
>>literary landscape is far more apt to generate a bunch of wild men & wyrd
>>sisters instead. As Olson himself most certainly was."
>>
>>I've been seeing a fair bit of WS lately (not only the stuff on my theatre
>>blog, though I won't forget that Hamlet in the shop front, which was just
>>wonderful...) Whenever I watch a good production - bad productions don't
>>count - I come out so vitalised and stimulated. Oddly, only last week I
>>watched the dvd of the RSC Macbeth Ron mentions, with Judi Dench and Ian
>>McKellan. It also features one of my favourite actors, Bob Peck as
>>Macduff.
>>One of the darkest slants on Macbeth that you can imagine - Macduff comes
>>out at the end having killed Macbeth, holding the daggers in the same way
>>that Macbeth did from killing Duncan - and you realise that he's as crazy
>>as
>>Macbeth was. Now that's bleak; the world may seem to be righted, but you
>>realise it isn't at all.
>>
>>Harold Bloom is erudite, of course, but I find him a bore on Shakespeare;
>>well, I try to read him, but my attention peters out. Maybe it's too
>>narrow
>>a stream of water in all that rich delta of words. I like Kermode better;
>>and Jan Kott is wonderful on WS in the mid-20C, and particularly its
>>radical
>>applications as a critique of power which was I think a big influence on
>>the
>>RSC. But now I'm really blithering.
>>
>>Interesting blog comments too - someone claims Shakespeare was a Lutheran,
>>especially in Hamlet. Hmm. (Reminds me of the joke in Long Day's Journey
>>into Night that Shakespeare was an Irish Catholic). Considering how
>>Hamlet
>>turns out, I wouldn't want WS as an advocate.
>>
>>Best
>>
>>A
>>
>>Alison Croggon
>>
>>Blog: http://theatrenotes.blogspot.com
>>Editor, Masthead: http://masthead.net.au
>>Home page: http://alisoncroggon.com
>>
>>
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