Several years ago, I organized an online discussion of Virgil's
Eclogues; we got through #5. If anyone's curious, the record of our
conversation is still available here:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/eclogues/messages/1. Last spring I tried
again, with some undergraduates. We finished this time, in the sense
that we read all ten poems. But I didn't feel that we'd got IN, if you
know what I mean, and I was grateful when we moved on to the Georgics.
This summer, I'm trying the Eclogues again, and I'd like to share
something that's bugging me, in hope that someone can set me my feet
back on the path of righteousness. Are you ready for it? Virgil's
Eclogues (and Spenser's SC) are all about poetry. How very meta! (Q: Why
are University of Chicago students smarter than Harvard students? A:
Everything Harvard can do, Chicago can do meta.) What's wrong with that?
There are, it seems to me, at least two objections which meta-poetry is
open to:
1. It has no content. A dog chasing his own tale is fun to watch, but he
can't really eat it. To change the metaphor, it's sterile. To change the
metaphor again, it's cut off from real life.
2. Sure, there is no "singing school but studying / Monuments of its own
magnificence." But that (the art world of Byzantium) is no country for
young men. What do young men -- the kind who are supposed to write
pastoral -- know about poetry? Who but a young poet would write twaddle
like this? "I am certain of nothing but the holiness of the Heart's
affections and the truth of the Imagination." Oh please. Double oh
please. License to spew thee out of my mouth. The heart is deceitful
above all things and desperately wicked: who can know it?
Before I go on, let me say this in favor of youth. If you read English
history, you get the impression that having a boy king is a bad thing.
But if you read Bible history, a boy king can be wonderful, especially
when you need a reformer (like Josiah). Young people are willing to rock
the boat. They don't measure (because they haven't experienced yet) the
real cost of their actions. They aren't invested yet in the status quo.
They can be uncompromising, because they haven't themselves been
compromised yet by the World. They wield a terrible, SWIFT sword. That
kind of thing terrifies old men -- terrifies and shames them.
This doesn't explain, though, why young people should be drawn to one of
the harder tasks there is in poetry, which writing pastoral is. First,
you have to master the low/thin/paired-down style. That's hard.
Shakespeare could do it ("Never, never, never"), but not until his
forties. Second, if poetry is going to be your subject, you have to know
something about poetry that is worth saying. On the one hand, the world
of poetry seems brave to young people, because it is new to them; that's
something. On the other hand, while they may be passionate about Poetry,
they usually haven't read very many poems; their tastes tend to be
narrow. Mine were, anyway. If it wasn't romantic/Romantic, I wasn't
interested. Satire was lost on me. I liked comedy, but I didn't value
it. Which brings me back to problem #2, what do young people know about
poetry?
O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death?
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Dr. David Wilson-Okamura http://virgil.org [log in to unmask]
English Department Virgil reception, discussion, documents, &c
East Carolina University Sparsa et neglecta coegi. -- Claude Fauchet
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