tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21999805.post3198918683737489370..comments2024-03-27T06:25:29.002-05:00Comments on Anecdotal Evidence: `Vary a Verse a Thousand Ways'Patrick Kurphttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08436175583386298032noreply@blogger.comBlogger1125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21999805.post-13885091409370758142017-07-15T02:12:30.079-05:002017-07-15T02:12:30.079-05:00Now this is fascinating for poets. You quote Wyndh...Now this is fascinating for poets. You quote Wyndham Lewis:<br /><br />“These times require a tongue that naked goes<br />Without more fuss than Dryden’s or Defoe’s.”<br /><br />A few days ago you quote Schmidt on CH Sisson: “His poems can seem Augustan, but his poetic logic is, like Marvell’s, a language of association, not analysis (which belongs to prose). The poetry does not anatomize experience: it establishes connections on the other side of reason, communicating to the pulse through its distinctive rhythms.”<br /><br />Schmidt almost apologises for implying that Sisson is 'Augustan' and, then, Lewis laments that we have no equivalent to the Augustans perhaps. There is a definite tension between what Schmidt says and what Lewis says. Schmidt compensates by saying that Sisson makes up for his Augustan leaning towards sense by suggesting a "poetic" counterbalance of rhythm and things "beyond reason." I wonder if this suggests that Pope and Dryden somehow lacked rhythm or that their rationailty was a hindrance.<br /><br />The party line these days (and one sometimes espoused by Schmidt) is that, at all costs we must "show not tell" and that any attempt to write modern Pope or Dryden would commit the ultimate sin of being "Olympian" or talking to the reader "de haut en bas" Personally I agree with Lewis - it's time real corrosive wit in poetry was re-established and what is true discussed. There is material galore for it. I have recently completed a poetic testament in heroic couplets airing these precise views called "Sense Unbound."Choderlos Lacloshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06241195645728138296noreply@blogger.com