I concede to you on this particular point. Poe wasn't influenced by the
French--they were influenced by him! Symbolist poetry was reliant on
his 'Philosophy of Composition'. They also were influenced by his
imagery and poetic ideas which led to a conception of a "pure poetry".
Still, my main argument stands: High Modernism was largely a US
development.
On Tue, 25 Aug 2009 14:02:27 -0400, Mark Weiss
<[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>This may be ignorance on my part. What French poets' value did Poe
>recognize? Les Fleurs du Mal wasn't published until a decade after
>Poe's death. Most of Hugo's poetry also postdates Poe. How available
>in the US was what had been published by 1849?
>
>Baudelaire's translations of Poe's stories, by the way, are wonderful.
>
>Mark
>
>At 01:49 PM 8/25/2009, you wrote:
>>I don't know if Whitman's admiring Tennyson necessarily supports
the
>>idea that in some way Whitman's poetry, is Tennysonian, and,
>>therefore, particularly British influenced. To me it does not appear to
>>be. It seems to be more akin to folk-song and rural story-telling
>>traditions.
>>
>>Poe's poems may be better in French but his acuity in recognizing
>>French poetry's value is more important in terms of the American
>>development of what we call High Modernism.
>>
>>And Yeat's, of course, was influenced, also, by the French Symbolists.
>>
>>
>>
>>On Tue, 25 Aug 2009 09:11:12 -0700, David Latane
>><[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>>
>> >I think the reports of British poetry's demise have been greatly
>>exaggerated; there's a reason Whitman referred to Tennyson as "The
>>Boss." Poe is notoriously better in French translation; to place him
>>above Yeats strikes me as ridiculous.
>> >I've encountered various manifestations of the "westering" motif--
we
>>Americans love it of course, but there's something abject in it
appearing
>>so frequently among the British, when the poetic achievement of so
>>many 20th and 21st-century British poets is so high.
>> >
>> >
>> >
>> >David Latane
>> > http://www.standmagazine.org (Stand Magazine, Leeds)
>> >
>> >--- On Tue, 8/25/09, Jeffrey Side <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>> >
>> >From: Jeffrey Side <[log in to unmask]>
>> >Subject: "Has British Poetry had any significance since
Wordsworth?"
>> >To: [log in to unmask]
>> >Date: Tuesday, August 25, 2009, 6:30 AM
>> >
>> >New blog post:
>>
>>
>>"Has British Poetry had any significance since Wordsworth?"
>>
>>This may seem an outlandish question, but I think it has some force
>>behind it. Of course, the influence of Wordsworth on contemporary
>>British mainstream poetry need hardly be stressed, and I have
written
>>extensively about this elsewhere. It is because of this influence that
>>most of the celebrated British poetry of the Twentieth Century
tended
>>towards mediocrity when compared to American poetry of the same
>>period.....
>>
>>
>>http://jeffrey-side.blogspot.com/
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