Date: Fri, 24 Oct 1997 13:48:11 +0100 (BST)
From: R I Caddel <[log in to unmask]>
To: [log in to unmask]
Cc: [log in to unmask], [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: Marjorie's letter
Reply-to: R I Caddel <[log in to unmask]>
>- hmm... I've heard this argument in various guises and remain to be
>convinced. As theory it's so aereated as to be flimsy, and vulnerable to a
>straight johnsonian "I refute it THUS" approach. Like Ken, I hope we can
>keep serving a slice of poetry with our theory, pie with our gravy,
>without which it's just a load of sauce.
Dear Ric
Whose "theory"? Are you talking about the I=T polemic I criticised,
or my criticism? I`m not arguing that poems shouldn`t be cited
because they get in the way of some "theory" - I am suggesting that
there is a possibility that citing one of Bernstein`s most
intractable poems, in a favourable or unfavourable context, cannot
help but merely enlist that poem as an example of Intractibility, an
Intractibility which is (paradoxically?) a cog in the wheel of a
polemic fully explicated elsewhere and in more or less normative
prose. I`m all for quotations, because I`m all for the work of
interpretation. Close readings of poems by Bernstein and others get
lost immediately (they`re meant to) and rush off to Content`s Dream
to extract some profit from the labour expended.
Your closing metaphor writes I=T poetry as nourishing and filling,
with theory as the sauce which makes it more palatable. What I`m
suggesting is that I=T writers have it the other way round.
robin
robin
RC
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