Alison, thank you for your reply. Perhaps we are talking past each other,
but I stand by my distrust of the rejection of sincerity. I think that a far
greater fault is a knowing & arch irony all too common in many contemporary
poetries that dresses itself up as a rejection of sincerity. I mean, of
course I know what you mean by sincerity--the cloying, self-aggrandizing
mode in which the poet says "I'm such an asshole--don't you love me?" It is
one of the fictions of postmodernism, though, that a writer can escape the
self. That's where the business about the "lyric I" comes in. I don't think
that sincerity & "self-expression" are the same thing at all. I warn my
students off self-expression right off when I teach writing classes. Perhaps
what I have in mind is the Higher Sincerity, a sincerity of intention. I
like Jonathan Mayhew's typology. (Jonathan is a Lorca scholar & poet. His
blog <http://jonathanmayhew.blogspot.com/index.html> is well worth checking
out.) I don't think he'll mind my quoting this bit from my blog:

sincere sincerity (Robert Creeley)
insincere sincerity (bad confessional poetry)
sincere insincerity (Oscar Wilde)
insincere insincerity (artistically dishonest use of fictionality)

jd


On 6/6/07, Alison Croggon <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>
> Hi Joe
>
> I'm not sure you've understood me at all. I entered this conversation by
> pointing out that the "lyric I" can be much more complex than merely the
> singular reflection of a self expression, and that it has been redefined
> by
> many interesting women writers in ways that deeply question the
> singularity
> of a given self. So in arguing against sincerity in art, I'm hardly
> chucking
> out the "I". Sincerity can be just as appalling in the third person, as in
> bad left wing plays that tell you all about everything you already know
> (sincerely, of course) in order to flatter you into thinking you're a good
> person for believing that the right things are wrong.
>
> Nor do I think that Robert Creeley or Frank O'Hara or Alice Notley are
> "sincere" poets. Not in the least. O'Hara's joke about Personism surely
> suggests something a little obliquely ironic there in relation to the
> self.
>
> But if I continue, I'll just be repeating what I've already said. I'm with
> Kaspar; the true being most feigning is I think a quote from Hamlet, and
> even if something called "Mastering the Language of Literature" sounds a
> little dubious, Shakespeare is probably a respectable guide in these
> matters. And thanks Stephen for the little bit of Rimbaud, which is where
> a
> lot of this stuff begins.
>
> Candice, I like your comment about tactics. Some are more honest, or at
> least less self-deceiving and crassly manipulative, than others, which is
> I
> guess really my point.
>
> All best
>
> A
>
>
>
> --
> Editor, Masthead: http://www.masthead.net.au
> Blog: http://theatrenotes.blogspot.com
> Home page: http://www.alisoncroggon.com
>



--
Joseph Duemer
Professor of Humanities
Clarkson University
[sharpsand.net]