Jeff,
Thanks for that.
These objections to my line of argument are clear ones, and I'll take note
of them if I have more to say in relation to this argument.
It's true that I've objected to your characterization of 200 years of
British poetry quite frequently, but if you were to look over my messages I
think you'd also realize I've been responding to many other things in the
flow of the conversation, including a fair amount about Wordsworth (your
main topic) and about French and Modernist poetry.
Once again, I can assure you I sympathize with your view that certain
areas of closely reasoned criticism are better suited to theses and articles
than to list discussions.
Best wishes,
Jamie
----- Original Message -----
From: "Jeffrey Side" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Monday, August 31, 2009 5:31 PM
Subject: Re: "Has British Poetry had any significance since Wordsworth?"
Jamie,
I apologise for any offence I have caused you in my posts. I am sure
that when I look back at your posts I will see that their tone is not as I
had supposed.
Part of my irritation was because I felt your line of argumentation was
trying to draw me into a debate about the last sentence of my blog
alone, rather than into one addressing the main contention of my blog,
which related to the US and French contribution to modernism, and
which is more easily defendable in a forum such as this, as opposed to
the difficulties of mounting a defence for the last sentence of my blog
in such a forum.
This is why I refrained from doing so in the absence of my thesis
chapters being read. I am sure you will see if you look again at this
discussion, that I had more run-ins with you than with others who only
addressed the main contention of my blog. It was your relentlessness
(as I saw it) in insisting that the debate not focus on this that caused
me some pique, and prompted me to say you were quibbling and
muddying the waters etc.
Also, I was slightly annoyed by what I perceived to be your dismissal of
a need to read my chapters in order to refute their content,
encouraging, instead, a quick-fire forum-based debate that would put
me at some disadvantage, given the complexity of the argument and its
reliance on detailed “evidence” presented within those chapters. As I
said to Philip, who questioned why I was adamant that my chapters be
read before I could discuss them: ‘in my thesis I sometimes take
several pages of heavily referenced material to argue a single point
about a few lines of poetry. It would be impossible to do that here’.
Best,
Jeff
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