 |
 |
And god said, chacun a son gout. To be serious for a last moment. I think what we're dealing with here, what I was trying to express, anyway, was that some arguments still engage us creatively, some not. I am of neither party in Chaucer's disagreement with the practitioners of aliterative verse, for instance: I read with equal pleasure, and am equally instructed by, Langland, Chaucer and the Pearl Poet, who, different as they are, begin to look more alike than they ever did to their contemporaries. Likewise Jonson and Donne, etc. But the issues in the divide between the line of descent that includes Eliot and the lines of descent that include Pound or Williams are not, I think, resolved, at least not for me. They simply conceive of the object "poem" and the path to the discovery of same in very different ways, and that's still contested ground. It obviously isn't for you or for many others, but I'm hardly alone in this. In time they too will all probably look more alike than not. Meanwhile, to stand outside this particular fray is in itself a way of defining what one's about, I think. This is part of a discussion that's been going on sporadically on this list for several years. It's not likely to be resolved this evening. Mark At 09:54 PM 3/27/2006, you wrote: >On 28/3/06 11:30 AM, "Mark Weiss" <[log in to unmask]> wrote: > > > I thought I was being clear that I meant relevance to practice, but > > maybe not. Lots of us still learn from Sappho (or our construction of > > Sappho). Fewer of us, I think, learn from Eliot. Even Eliot rarely > > learned from Eliot, tho he learned a lot from Pound. > >Well, I guess you're speaking only of your own practice; others may have >different experiences. Your earlier post did have a rather Olympian air >about its judgement... Though again, to value a poet only for what he or she >has to teach is perhaps limiting. Some of the joy of poetry (or other arts) >for me is finding pleasures that bear no relation to my own practices, a >breathing space where something simply is, though I do love those who open >doors for me. > >Best > >A > > > > > > >Alison Croggon > >Blog: http://theatrenotes.blogspot.com >Editor, Masthead: http://masthead.net.au >Home page: http://alisoncroggon.com