What crit did Tomlinson write apart from a good chapter in the Pelican Guide to
englit?
The current tls online reruns an old T poem - never collected because
'satirical'? - and foreshadows a forthcoming CP.
Max
Quoting David Bircumshaw <[log in to unmask]>:
> I ought to add that I think Davie's poems after Mickiewicz and Pasternak are
> rather attractive. But his contemporary as a poet-critic Charles Tomlinson
> I've alwayd thought far more interesting.
>
> 2009/7/15 David Bircumshaw <[log in to unmask]>
>
> > As a critic/teacher Davie hada very interesting career: from being a
> > supporter of Larkin he became a mentor of Tom Raworth, if I remember
> > correctly. He did write a short poem in his The Shires sequence which
> > mentions the Leicester Poetry Society at mention ing which people's
> interest
> > will perk, unfortunately I have to wince inwardly when mentioning it to
> > advertise the group as the poem's also little more than doggerel.
> >
> > The problem with 20th century evaluations of Milton and Shelley in
> > particular is disentangling critiques of elements of their diction with the
> > fact that both were political poets and of their time precursors of the
> > modern left while their arch-detractors like Pound and Eliot (explicitly)
> > and Leavis (implicitly) were very much of the right wing. I'd hasten to add
> > that I don't know what Leavis's actual political affiliations were, but his
> > nostalgic harking back to the organic village is as conservative as,say,the
> > avowedly anti-democrat Catholic Tolkein.
> >
> > 2009/7/14 Max Richards <[log in to unmask]>
> >
> > I think Davie was hard at work in academic English widening the canon that
> >> had
> >> been narrowed by Leavis's Revaluation (1936), which was so hard on Shelley
> >> and
> >> Milton and ...
> >>
> >> Whatever Davie's achievement as poet, his criticism wherever I have
> >> sampled it
> >> has an energy and often relish about it that engages me ...
> >>
> >> Max
> >>
> >> Quoting David Bircumshaw <[log in to unmask]>:
> >>
> >> > I never did read it when young and it has been a pleasure to do so now,
> >> I've
> >> > also looked back at a lot of Shelley that I did find exciting when 14
> >> and am
> >> > rather thrilled that I can still feel those pinions beating in, say, the
> >> > Hymn to Intellectual Beauty. It's as valid of its age as Beethoven
> >> sonatas
> >> > or the slightly later Chopin. I can almost feel wooden ships at anchor,
> >> hear
> >> > their timbers creaking.
> >> >
> >> > Yes, Julian and Maddalo does have a calmer voice in the narrator, its
> >> rather
> >> > like a foretaste of Clough there, with the more Gothic and wilder
> >> Shelley in
> >> > the voice of the madman. it's very kind of as puny a poet as Donald
> >> Davie to
> >> > condescend to pat him on the head.
> >> >
> >> > 2009/7/9 Max Richards <[log in to unmask]>
> >> >
> >> > > Thanks for both, Robin.
> >> > >
> >> > > My wife is rapt; she has printed out the whole poem, and says it
> >> speaks to
> >> > > her
> >> > > even more than her favourite Wordsworth passages.
> >> > > She says she twisted her ankle part way through the Romantic poets
> >> course
> >> > > twenty
> >> > > years ago, and missed Shelley altogether!
> >> > > I recall Donald Davie long ago ('Purity of Diction...') made a case
> >> for a
> >> > > levelheaded rather than rhapsodic Shelley on the strength of 'Julian
> >> and
> >> > > Maddalo'. But I guess it remains on the unread or under-read side of
> >> > > Shelley.
> >> > >
> >> > > Max
> >> > >
> >> > > Quoting Robin Hamilton <[log in to unmask]>:
> >> > >
> >> > > > Specifically:
> >> > > >
> >> > > > Most wretched men
> >> > > > Are cradled into poetry by wrong:
> >> > > > They learn in suffering what they teach in song.
> >> > > >
> >> > > > Shelley, "Julian and Maddalo", Line 544.
> >> > > >
> >> > > > Robin
> >> > > >
> >> > > > > "... in the preface to the collection [Elizabeth Barrett
> >> (Browning)]
> >> > > > > insisted on the sorrow and suffering necessary to the poet, and
> >> she
> >> > > quoted
> >> > > > > from Shelley's 'Julian and Maddalo' to clinch her argument that
> >> 'we
> >> > > learn
> >> > > > > in suffering what we teach in song.' ... "
> >> > > >
> >> > >
> >> > >
> >> > >
> >> > >
> >> > >
> >> > > ------------------------------------------------------------
> >> > > This email was sent from Netspace Webmail: http://www.netspace.net.au
> >> > >
> >> >
> >> >
> >> >
> >> > --
> >> > David Bircumshaw
> >> > "A window./Big enough to hold screams/
> >> > You say are poems" - DMeltzer
> >> > Website and A Chide's Alphabet
> >> > http://www.staplednapkin.org.uk
> >> > The Animal Subsides http://www.arrowheadpress.co.uk/books/animal.html
> >> > Leicester Poetry Society: http://www.poetryleicester.co.uk
> >> >
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >> ------------------------------------------------------------
> >> This email was sent from Netspace Webmail: http://www.netspace.net.au
> >>
> >
> >
> >
> > --
> > David Bircumshaw
> > "A window./Big enough to hold screams/
> > You say are poems" - DMeltzer
> > Website and A Chide's Alphabet
> > http://www.staplednapkin.org.uk
> > The Animal Subsides http://www.arrowheadpress.co.uk/books/animal.html
> > Leicester Poetry Society: http://www.poetryleicester.co.uk
> >
>
>
>
> --
> David Bircumshaw
> "A window./Big enough to hold screams/
> You say are poems" - DMeltzer
> Website and A Chide's Alphabet
> http://www.staplednapkin.org.uk
> The Animal Subsides http://www.arrowheadpress.co.uk/books/animal.html
> Leicester Poetry Society: http://www.poetryleicester.co.uk
>
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