I'm reminded of Spencer's "for short time endless monument." More than most of us, Spencer would have expected his work to survive him. But he was realistic, in a christian way: it all goes up in smoke at the end of days. As it all certainly will when the aging sun goes out in a last burst of glory. Into what future in fact do those of us who worry about it hope our work survives? We have no decipherable writing older than 5000 years.
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>From: "[log in to unmask]" <[log in to unmask]>
>Sent: Sep 2, 2016 11:01 AM
>To: [log in to unmask]
>Subject: Re: Have any of you prepared for posthumous recognition?
>
>>By the way, it’s a "sad" reality that if ones work has not been archived, there is little chance of any future attention being given to it; such is the importance of such archives for academics to use for their research
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>That sent a bit of a chill down my spine. I am certainly not one of those who is indifferent to future attention. But my hopeful (too hopeful?) view is that if we leave enough of our writings on the internet then that takes care of the archive, and as this online material is publically available it isn't even limited to an academic audience, at least in principle.
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>Or do you intend an underlying subtext here, David: that unless academics have access to a body of "exclusive" material (stuff available to academics but NOT to the general public), there is little incentive to turn their attention to a poet's work, since the worthwhileness of the research project wouldn't be self-evident if they were only attending to what any old body could attend to. ...
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