>> Just in the way I suspect Larkin - like him
> or not - speaks to an English melancholy that, too, may be epidemic.
>
> Oh really, you've gone too far! His melancholy is a particular post-war one,
> historically situated
Yes - I am a relative know-nothing when it comes to when the English
were/are happy or not.
Why do we think of W.C. Williams as happy, and Eliot as not. For all of its
shadows, I constantly find Williams' Desert Music an upper.
Recently, I found Robert Adamson to be an "upper." As well as good.
It is a curious subject, 'happiness' - somebody was talking about a country
that now does an annual Gross National Product index for "happiness".
Curious how happiness would be factored for a poetry (rather than poets, god
forgive us). Even with all the tragedies, I think Shakespeare is a pretty
happy maker of plays. I don't know if I would say the same of Corneille
(sp?) or Racine. Moliere, definitely yes.
God, this, too, could be an endless essay.
Stephen V
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