He was te ruins of his own civilization. Lots to learn from in the ruins.

-----Original Message-----
From: Robin Hamilton<[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Oct 19, 2016 4:54 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: Why Shakespeare Matters debate

I could happily lose the Debate in Heaven (3-4), Chatting in Eden (7), War in Heaven (?), and Instant History (11-12), despite the occasional good bits here and there. I think the best of the poem -- Books 1-2, for example, the central Eden books, etc. -- condemns the rest. The narrative/lyric balance slips. As to PR, I never reached it -- I finished Samson, but not with enough enjoyment to continue rather than return to the best of PL. With Spenser, I was in at the death of the Blatant Beast, but unlike (the best of) Paradise Lost, I can't imagine ever returning to it. Small beer, compared with Milton, but an easy read. The first few lines of PL -- Of man's first disobedience and the fruit etc.-- for me point the way to where the meat in the egg is at. Shame Milton didn't keep his own opening words in mind as he went on.
Narrative technique gets just a bit called into question in the various sonnet sequences , from Sidney and Greville through Shakespeare, and that's I think, what a lot of later poets pick up on. Or perhaps I'm only thinking of Edwin Morgan.
Pound, well ... a monstrous genius, in the various senses of the term, both the man and the Cantos. My feelings towards it tend to be awe mixed with despair ...
Robin