Thanks for a civil reply. I see what Peter meant now.
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Jamie McKendrick wrote:
Ok this is civil and warrants a reply.
What Peter says is that it's "unlikely" not that "all songs are shallower than poetry" - that's a difference of some importance. I have a problem with "seriousness and sublimity" in Peter's argument - because I don't think 'seriousness' is required of or for either form. And the term 'sublimity' has a long history from Longinus to the present, where it's become an intense focus of academic study, and so has acquired a broad range of meanings which, again, I don't think helps the discussion. But if I were to guess where he was going with this it's that the kind of extended (his word) complexity you could meet in, say, Paradise Lost or even a shorter poem like Wordsworth’s Immortality Ode would be inimical to the nature of song. This I do agree with.
I’m not discounting, myself, the possibility that songs can be serious or sublime (though I’m unsure of what’s meant here by the last). Some songs seem more serious than some poems. I’d say for example Dylan’s Ballad of Judas Priest is both serious (in a good way) and a touch uncanny (if not sublime). So in this respect we may not be in disagreement.
As for the enjambment in Joni Mitchell you may be right, but I’d be interested to see (or hear) examples. Your explanation about ‘on some of her longer lines’ confuses me as it seems to me a contradiction. There either is or isn’t an enjambment, and that either is or isn’t registered in the performance – it’s not something ‘done’ to longer lines, because if it’s done then the line is no longer ‘longer’ (which sounds weirdly like New Guinea pigeon).
Jamie
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