Well, I havent had time to read the whole thing, but this just makes
me wonder how many important poets he simply has not read.
I can think of quite a few....
Doug
On 6-Apr-10, at 3:29 AM, Jeffrey Side wrote:
> "Century XX after Four Quartets" by Adam Fieled at The Argotist Online
>
> http://www.argotistonline.co.uk/Fieled%20essay%202.htm
>
>
> Excepts:
>
>
> "What do we see around us in 2010? It is a poetry world stumbling
> for direction, still largely lost in the theoretical wilderness of
> post-modernism..."
>
> "I do not believe that much English language poetry composed after
> 1943, the year that Eliot’s Four Quartets were released, deserves
> the title of high art. Before I explain why the twentieth century,
> post Four Quartets, was mostly a washout for English language
> poetry, let me explain what distinctions I believe subsist between
> high and low art. "
>
> "Low art impulses often maintain a stance that technical competence
> is unnecessary, that breadth of vision is too ambitious, that
> narrative solidity is a remnant of the nineteenth century...and that
> “seriousness” is an outdated and outmoded concern. "
>
> "... Eliot’s language is taut, sinewy, disciplined, and rich [and]
> makes the whole of Four Quartets ring as a solid, major work of high
> literary art. If another such work exists that was released between
> 1943 and 2000, I haven’t seen it."
>
> "The Objectivists, the Beats, the New York School (first and second
> generation), the Confessional poets—what do these poets lack, so
> that the appellation high art does not affix to their work ..."
>
> "...Objectivists, the Beats, and the New York School poets, fall
> squarely under the rubric that covers minor poetry and poets, when
> placed next to the scope and achievements of Eliot and Yeats."
>
Douglas Barbour
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