Do 'we' think of Eliot as 'not happy' and Williams as being so? This
particular part of 'we' doesn't look at things in that way at all. Williams
certainly can seem fluffy compared to the cold weird and brilliant Eliot.
The best Eliot poems, such as (of course) The Waste Land, Mr Appolinax
(which is a gem that is inimatable, in that one Eliot conforms to his own
stricture on Shakespeare as not bequeathing a tradition) Prufock a bit (it's
readable and has great lines, but also sounds like Philip Larkin on speed)
and too the real problem: Sweeney Agonistes, which is probably the most
original poem of twentieth century English literature but also a headache:
it seems to combine American vernacular with the musical hall and British
oddities about domestic sex-murders and Greek tragedy, there was, and is
still not, anything like that, it's a misogynist masterpiece, in tatters,
it's an embarrassment, and it's brilliant.
Best
Dave
----- Original Message -----
From: "Edmund Hardy" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Tuesday, March 28, 2006 10:13 PM
Subject: Re: Help! The grass is singing
> >Why do we think of W.C. Williams as happy, and Eliot as not.
>
> because we think of all that weight bearing down on Eliot, & of all that
> lightness & airiness just sort of rushing through Williams?
>
> Shakespeare's an upper because it's just delirious, all these people
> speaking in this incredible way
>
> I find Frank O'Hara a downer, but most people seem to think he's an upper
>
> then i find Kafka and Beckett and Thomas Bernhard to be uppers; but I find
> the plays of Noel Coward to be mostly downers, outright tragedies...
Blithe
> Spirit
>
> >It is a curious subject, 'happiness' - somebody was talking about a
country
> that now does an annual Gross National Product index for "happiness".
>
> there's an interesting ethnography, gladwin & sarason's Truk: Man In
> Paradise (from the 50s) about a small-scale society on the island of Truk
(a
> place known now for scuba-diving) where all material needs are supplied -
> plenty of fish, no nearby aggressors - but the society is torn by fights &
> accusations & psychological insecurities of all kinds - It's a stumbling
> block for a political theory of happiness...
>
> Edmund
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