John: This isn't a replt to you per se, just a convenient place to
make a query. Am I wrong in assuming that the criticism was of use of
brackets [ ] and not parentheses ( )? Or have I been misusing the
terms all these years? If it is about [ ] then the criticism is
directed at self-proclaimed post-modernists. I don't mean to
criticize the poets in question myself by sayng "self-proclaimed," I
just have very little use for the term.
Mark
At 03:06 PM 11/10/2006, you wrote:
>Fate urged the Sheers, and cut the Sylph in twain,
>(But Airy Substance soon unites again)
>
> -- The Rape of the Lock
>
>I've always thought someone should have made a movie of that poem. But it
>should have been made in the Thirties, with Clark Gable and Jean Harlow.
>Like so much else, too late, too late!
>
>Also I think it used to be common to put vocatives in parentheses, as in
>Jonson's:
>
> To draw no envy (Shakespeare) on thy name
>
>A pleasant orthographical convention the passing of which is regrettable.
>
>And I always enjoy seeing those right margin braces to set off triple rhymed
>lines in heroic couplets: "Hey look I'm using an extra rhyme!" Those were
>the days ...
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