Tennyson does *not* get enough love around here, or pretty much
anywhere these days.
Without Tennyson, no Yeats.
Oh, and there's this: http://www.bartleby.com/229/5008.html
Tennyson is sick, of course, with all the sickness of the Victorians -
overbrimming with it. _Maud_ is just about the most deranged thing any
civilised (I used the word advisedly) person ever wrote. I can quite
understand finding him repulsive; but that's no excuse for not
recognising his importance.
Now, who's for a quick run-through of Stainer's _Crucifixion_?
Dominic
On 1/12/06, Mark Weiss <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> The locus classicus I should think would be Hesiod's Theogony.
>
> A nice article, as far as it goes, at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muse.
>
> As to Graves, he gets better and better the less you read him. For a start,
> I can think of a few other reasons why people fortunate enough not to die
> of wars and disease stop writing poetry, and no great loss, usually.
>
> And he seems to have missed the boat on In Memoriam.
>
> Mark
>
>
> At 08:49 PM 1/12/2006 +0000, you wrote:
> >A reminder for those interested that the locus classicus for much of what's
> >being discussed under this heading remains Robert Graves' The White Goddess,
> >especially chapters 22ff. In hopes of encouraging the company to read or
> >reread these chapters, I give below an excerpt which I am sure each of you
> >who reads it will cherish as a source of either insight or aggravation:
> >
> >===
> >
> >The reason why so remarkably few young poets continue nowadays to publish
> >poetry after their early twenties is...that something dies in the poet.
> >Perhaps he has compromised his poetic integrity by valuing some range of
> >experience or other - literary, religious, philosophical, dramatic,
> >political, or social - above the poetic. But perhaps also he has lost his
> >sense of the White Goddess: the woman whom he took to be a Muse, or who was
> >a Muse, turns into a domestic woman and would have him turn similarly into a
> >domesticated man. Loyalty prevents him from parting company with her,
> >especially if she is the mother of his children ... and as the Muse fades
> >out, so does the poet. The English poets of the early nineteenth century
> >... were uncomfortably aware of this problem and many of them, such as
> >Southey and Patmore, tried to lyricize domesticity, though none of them with
> >poetic success. The White Goddess is anti-domestic; she is the perpetual
> >'other woman', and her part is difficult indeed for a woman of sensibility
> >to play for more than a few years, because the temptation to commit suicide
> >in simple domesticity lurks in every mænad's and muse's heart.
> >
> >===
> >
> >Also relevant is the comment Graves makes somewhere about Tennyson's In
> >Memoriam, which Graves considered was doomed to failure as a poem because "a
> >Muse does not wear whiskers."
>
--
Shall we be pure or impure? Today
we shall be very pure. It must always
be possible to contain
impurities in a pure way.
--Tarmo Uustalu and Varmo Vene
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