Some replies to Rebecca Seiferle's responses, which I thought were useful
and interesting. She's right of course that politically dissenting poems
under the Roman Empire would never have been allowed to circulate and so of
course couldn't have been successful. When I used that term, though, to
claim that successful political poetry has been generally conservative, I
meant artistically successful. But it comes down to the same thing: poetry
can't be artistically successful if it isn't created in the first place, and
criticisms of the Emperor wouldn't have been. Some people, of course,
notably Ezra Pound in the case of Propertius, have argued that the Augustan
poets were covertly subversive. The counter-argument is that Augustus would
have approved of a certain amount of subdued subversiveness, within
carefully understood limits, since it would bear testimony to the liberalism
of his rule. I'll leave it at that now, though if anyone's interested in
further discussions of Roman poetry I'd be glad to join in.
I appreciate the reference to the book on Quechua and will look it up.
I agree also with her about Sappho, with some qualifications. Rebecca's
statement that "the uses of power are rarely simplistic, and history is not
particularly progressive; between us and her perhaps there is more abyss
than asce" is well said, and reminds us that a certain amount of humility
should be part of the baggage we bring to any encounter with an artist from
an alien time and place.
I also agree with the observation that Sappho's poetry may have been
"permissible" because it "inhabited a realm--of love, of feminine
experience, of the worship of Aphrodite -- that Greek society allowed to
women" Sappho might have been non-threatening exactly because she accepted
the pretty absolute separation between the male and female spheres which was
characteristic of Greek culture -- most of her poetry seems to inhabit an
almost sealed-off feminine world, and even the one poem in which she
explicitly contrasts the male and female spheres to the detriment of the
former (the one beginning "Some say a host of horsemen and others of
infantry...") assumes their separation. When I try to think about whether
her position can then be in any way subversive, I start to get confused.
But I must take exception to Rebecca's saying that Sappho was "apparently
connected to a cult of Aphrodite, mentored young women, prior to their
marriage..." This is the old myth of Sappho as the headmistress of a sort
of girls' school under cover of a cult of Aphrodite. It was invented by
disapproving classical scholars as a means of explaining away the erotic
coloring of Sappho's relationships with the women who appear in her poetry,
and is pretty thoroughly discredited today, though you'll still sometimes
see it in print.
Alison Croggon points out that some people argue for Shakespeare as a
political subversive. No doubt they do, but surely the plays all overtly
support the status quo -- if they hadn't he would have ended up in the
Tower.
I liked Anny Ballardini's "Clean" very much. It's not clear to me which
version she sent is the final one, but I liked the first one that appeared
(without the couple at the end) better. I'm not bothered by the lack of
"to" or the rhythm of the last line, though I do think the last line should
have more punch. My one criticism is the use of "crispy:" I understand the
desire to have a striking non-cliche adjective here, and the literal meaning
is suitable, but the tone of the word seems somehow wrong. The poem's
atmosphere reminds me of Herrick's "Corinna:"
See how Aurora throws her fair
Fresh-quilted colours through the air...
==================================================
Jon Corelis [log in to unmask]
http://www.geocities.com/joncpoetics
==================================================
_________________________________________________________________
STOP MORE SPAM with the new MSN 8 and get 2 months FREE*
http://join.msn.com/?page=features/junkmail
