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name names and cite actual passages please i agree with Peter. Unless we get into details here there is no possibility of further interest. put some actual poetry into this discussion as if so far xx cc On Aug 27, 2009, at 7:47 AM, Jeffrey Side wrote: > Wordsworth's influence comes out of his poetic theory which favours a > descriptive accuracy. UK mainstream poetry have been like this for > years--ask anyone. Ok, maybe not so much now as the mainstream may > have taken on-board some avant-garde notions albeit watered down. > > > > On Wed, 26 Aug 2009 19:55:45 +0100, Peter Riley > <[log in to unmask]> wrote: > >> Where do you see this influence? Can you give an example of it? The >> only place I thought I saw it recently was in Dart by Alice Oswald, >> where I thought it had a beneficial effect. Indeed long-term (100- >> years) influence could be more likely to liven things up than >> imitation of last year's prize-winners, as a general rule. >> >> I know that Wordsworth is highly revered by poets such as J.H. Prynne >> and Keston Sutherland and presumably this will have some result in >> their work, though it would be difficult to put a finger on it, >> certainly not in their recent work (though parts of The Oval Window >> maybe...) >> >> >> It was Shakespeare's plays, translated into French, which so much >> excited the French poets, and musicians too, especially Berlioz. >> >> >> >> On 26 Aug 2009, at 18:31, Jeffrey Side wrote: >> >> Peter, no one is saying that Wordsworth should not be admired. My >> point is that his influence has prevailed in UK poetry long past its >> sell >> by date. I don't jink much of shakespeare's sonnets by the way--great >> though he was as a playwright. >> >> >> >> >> >> On Wed, 26 Aug 2009 16:01:31 +0100, Peter Riley >> <[log in to unmask]> wrote: >> >>> As one of the poets mentioned on Marks' list (thanks kindly, Mark) > I'd >>> like to mention that Wordsworth has always been an inspiring >> example. >>> And so has Thomas Hardy. And that neither of them has anything to > do >>> with the (actually extremely varied and in some quarters quite >>> healthy) poetry which gets labelled "mainstream". It was Donald > Davie >>> who was mainly responsible for the Hardy--Larkin link, as he was for > a >>> lot of other misleading pronouncements at a time when the > Cambridge >>> academy was forcing its way into the contemporary poetry scene as >>> adjudicators. It's like Eliot's silly attack on Milton and Pound's >>> silly attack on just about everybody -- an academic obsession with >>> genealogies which has little to do with how poetry gets written. > The >>> historical occasion is built into the writing of someone like WW and >>> there are questions of authenticity which cut it off from its >>> "influence" . Recent writing about him from Cambridge could not be >>> accused of promoting philosophical empiricism. >>> >>> You can get rid of all 20th Century English (not British) poetry if >>> you want to ---we did in Cambridge in the 1960s, -- if you want to >>> write in a certain way you construct a tradition for yourself, tho I >>> don't think it actually helps. And of course it comes back, it >>> has to, >>> you realise that you're deliberately blinkering yourself for the >>> sake >>> of some poetico-ideology. I should have thought the time for that > kind >>> of exercise was long past. >>> >>> And incidentally, as regards a certain kind of poetical texture and >>> figurative freedom among the French "symbolistes" passing on to >>> America and all that, I think that if you get the full historical >>> perspective on this, you find that what it ultimately derives >>> from is >>> England, in the form of Shakespeare (as against Racine etc.). France >>> had a very rigid inheritance of what we call Augustanism, and an >>> Academy to enforce it, and Shakes was one of the great liberators >>> from that for the early 19th century poets. >>> >>> Thanks for innarestin chat, everyone. >>> >>> Peter >>> >>> >>> On 26 Aug 2009, at 14:49, Tim Allen wrote: >>> >>> You might not like it jamie, but for as long as the mediocre and >>> dull >>> are held up by the broadsheet hacks and current Poetry Review > critics >>> as being the best of British while treating the names on cris's list >>> as some kind of eccentric anomaly, a bit exotic and interesting but >>> not really 'it', then names like Whitman and Dickinson are going to > be >>> shunted around thus. The antipathetic relationship between >> mainstream >>> British poetry and the modernisms and post-modernisms is a fact, so >>> stop trying to pretend otherwise. This antagonism seems to be >>> something particular to the English speaking world, or far more >>> pronounced and stubborn at least. Why? >>> >>> Tim A. >>> >>> On 26 Aug 2009, at 14:00, Jamie Mckendrick wrote: >>> >>>> Baudelaire as a poet - and even the history of his reception - >>>> interests me >>>> intensely, and I don't like to see him, or for that matter >>>> Wordsworth, Whitman >>>> and Dickinson, shunted around like pawns in a specious manouvre > to >>>> vilify >>>> contemporary British poetry. >> >> >>