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I did say +late+ seventeenth century Spanish poetry, Alison, by which time Gongora (1627), Lope de Vega (1635) and even Quevedo (1645) were all gone. I certainly agree that overt artifice can work, as in Brecht, what I'm fudging towards is an understanding of how it can succeed in some poetry but not in others. Best Dave David Bircumshaw Leicester, England Home Page A Chide's Alphabet Painting Without Numbers http://homepage.ntlworld.com/david.bircumshaw/index.htm ----- Original Message ----- From: "Alison Croggon" <[log in to unmask]> To: <[log in to unmask]> Sent: Sunday, December 29, 2002 9:35 AM Subject: Re: Sorry! At 11:54 PM +0000 12/28/02, david.bircumshaw wrote: >Now there I suspect you've hit the proverbial nail on the head, the question >of foregrounding is exactly the point. For instance, much Italian or Spanish >poetry of the later seventeenth century is debilitated by a too apparent >display of artifice, a Baroque mannerism that also doubled as servility >towards the powerful. As are some of the lesser English metaphysicals, who >reads Cowley now? An obvious counter example of artifice being foregrounded with entirely other purposes is the theatre of Brecht. Baroque seems more complex to me, also, than to be dismissed as "servility towards the powerful" - are Gongora's works really so petty? But you are not very specific - In any case, servility to the powerful exists as much in works of apparent transparency (which have as much artifice as any other poem) as in those where artifice is apparent. As is surely obvious at present. Best A -- Alison Croggon Home page http://www.users.bigpond.com/acroggon/ Masthead Online http://au.geocities.com/masthead_2/