Ric --
I did not particularly fail to enjoy Pete's scattering of the line, and
understand that it does not imply that the line ought to have been written
otherwise; whether or not such a method can be said to be universally valid
as good criticism is another question, and one which I believe the weasels
lines do raise in a fairly distinct and I'd go so far as to say oppugnant
manner. My original disagreement was entirely on this head -- that the
pleasure involved in redistributing the line is a distraction from or
alleviation of its actual significance, and that this is important for 2
reasons: 1: the distraction is not wholly reversible, but inducts a
materially concluded possibility of relief that the poem violently and with
its entire purposefulness strives to evade. 2: it changes the morals of
the piece to do this. I have written at some length re: just this, though
I suspect in the style that Pete quite rightly calls dense (I do hanker
after a bit more lucidity, but hey). Karlien -- no, that's right, one
instance of disagreement needn't be a basis for total dismissal, and I
don't at all oppose this playful redistribution absolutely; it's just that
the lines in Prynne's late work (of all poetry) do seem, to me, quite
peculiarly and severely prohibitive of this tactic, for expanded versions
of the reasons mentioned above. (k)
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