Just a few thoughts on this, most of which are wild assertions.

I think the problem with the "I" stems from the Romantics. when I look
at the "I" in the translations of Catullus or even later up until the
18th Century, the I has to bear very little weight. The I is MIA for a
large chunk of the medeival period, when often, there wasn't even an
author. Later, the I is a praise-singer or elegist, towards either god
or king. Compare and contrast with Hugo:

"In "Reflexions sur mes contemporains", Baudelaire compares Hugo to a
biblical prophet whom God has ordered to eat a book. The poet consumes
the French lexicon, and it emerges from his mouth as "a world, a
colored, melodious and moving Universe" (Oeuvres completes, p. 705).
This is a somewhat monstrous version of the important topos of
Romantic poetry describing the world as a book and the poet as
privileged reader whose verse deciphers the mysteries of the
universe."

(Nathaniel Wing, A New History of French Literature, p738)

That's a helluva difference. The poet is now privileged, interpretes
the mysteries of the universe, becomes a prophet etc etc.
Baudelaire's alienated "I" was the effective death-knell of the
prophetised "I", although I wonder if Modernism totally erased it.

So now we live in times where poets want to obliterate the I. I always
thought this un-healthy, a self-erasure that was almost psychotic.
What is more, even if you erase all the pro-nouns, I think the poet
will still be there, somewhere, and someone with the right tools will
ferret out the author, their gender etc. A poet's selection of words,
and a big-enough data-set, will always brand them. So hiding from the
I is pointless, a fiction, as Joe says. But resurrecting the I as used
by Catullus is of neccesity, difficult, living both in the comet-tail
of romanticism and it's reactionary child, Modernism. The quiet I that
acknowledges it's interpretative limits, is neither privileged, nor
has swallowed a lexicon. I guess this is a nostalgic I, but it has
some value in the world even today.  If one is looking for an I to
suit the modern world, then I would argue for a fractured I,
reflecting the mass of data out there, abroad in the world, pretending
to be I, killing I when someone throws a switch, spending credit that
I haven't got. In the spirit of Superman, a Bizarro I. But hey, I
suspect this is *my* hobby horse, so I'll let it ride away into the
dusk.

I think that the lyric I never strode the theatre's boards in any
serious sense. Poetry and theatre parted company in the 18th century
when prose replaced classicism , certainly in France.

Glad I got that out the way.

Roger

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