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Dave: > I'll resist the temptation to query the poetry of the 'Moment', Rob, but I'd > be wary against applying a simple scheme to the history of Old English > poetry, period. Robert Mannying (sp?) precedes the Gawayne Poet who is > contemporary with Langland etc etc Indeed -- and it did occur to me at the time that the coexistence of the Gawain poet(s) and Langland rather called my overall point into question. What we have at that point is maybe something nearer a geographic specificity than ever after. (And something maybe closer to States poetry than there has been in Britain). Though the moment I say that, I want to qualify it. Until recently ... Leaving Scotland aside ... And of course Willima Barnes ... etc. > As for the Romantics, despite Wordsworth's formulaic call to arms, or > quills, one could hardly describe Keats as averse to specialised language or > poetics. Indeed -- and there are strong reservations to be made about Wordsworth's practice in relation to the Preface. But wasn't Keats described (by a Scotsman, admittedly) as a Cockney Poet? > But I see no clash between the natural, unfenced condition of > language, and sphistications of poetics, and simplicities like mediaeval > lyrics, where I do see a falsification is in that kind of poetry that > affects to be common sense and parlance but is in fact merely the dialect of > one tribe, to steal that phrase applied to Meredith, 'the Home Counties > posing as the Universe', as it were. Well, I'd certainly go with the last point (why you'd wince at hearing the Movement described as "poets"?) but I do have more reservations about there being "no clash between the natural, unfenced condition of language, and sophistications of poetics". I think both elements are powerful and important, and both operate in all poetry at any time -- but the balance +does+ shift -- between poets, within the career of individual poets, over time ... Cheers Robin