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Thread: Who are the most important western poets of all time?

  1. #16
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    A top 10 in some sort of chronological order, all of them worth reading.

    1. Homer
    2. Virgil
    3. Chaucer
    4. Shakespeare
    5. Milton
    6. Keats
    7. Byron
    8. Shelley
    9. Whitman
    10. Dickinson

    The list is in no way exhaustive, but should offer you a way through the woods of the western poetical tradition. These are just names to start you off on what will hopefully be a lifelong journey of exploration.

  2. #17
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    Yeah, will get you lost in the woods and have an awful start. 8 poets from english idiom, a language which importance only really rose from only the last 2 centuries... Are you serious? Ovid alone is more relevant to western poetic tradtion than basically all english poetry.

  3. #18
    Artist and Bibliophile stlukesguild's Avatar
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    A "Top 10" list without Dante?!
    Beware of the man with just one book. -Ovid
    The man who doesn't read good books has no advantage over the man who can't read them.- Mark Twain
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  4. #19
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    Or Ovid, Ariosto, Petrarca, Horace, Sappho, Lucian... you know, exactly all those poets who founded the western tradition...

  5. #20
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    I agree with JCamillo about Ovid and especially Petrarch, and of course would include Homer and Virgil. I also agree about Dante. But let's face it--he wasn't exactly a barrel of laughs. Only one joke in the whole Divine Comedy (and a cheap fart joke at that.)

    I could never make a list. It would be far, far too lengthy and probably heavy with English poets as they formed the bulk of my education. I'm talking about the author of Beowulf, the Pearl poet, the author of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, Chaucer, Shakespeare, the metaphysical poets, Milton, and later, Pope and Dryden. Tennyson was a giant, and then Wordsworth. I could go on and on.

    See what I mean? Rather than list them or praise 'em I'd rather be reading 'em.
    Last edited by AuntShecky; 08-18-2014 at 10:19 PM.

  6. #21
    Alea iacta est. mortalterror's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Poetaster View Post
    Sorry to go off topic, but A.D. Melville: what do you think of his translation of Ovid's Metamorphosis? Have you read it?
    I mentioned my opinion of the Melville translation on this site back in 2008: http://www.online-literature.com/for...-Metamorphoses
    Of bodies changed to other forms I tell;
    You Gods, who have yourselves wrought every change,
    Inspire my enterprise and lead my lay
    In one continuous song from nature's first
    Remote beginnings to our modern times.

    That Melville translation really sticks in my craw. It sounds like he's updated ancient Roman poetry to a sixteenth century English idiom. It doesn't have the feel of ancient Latin with the added draw back that it doesn't even sound like 16th century English. Here's how Marlowe translated Book one of Ovid's Amores.

    We which were Ovids five books, now are three,
    For these before the rest preferreth he:
    If reading five thou plainst of tediousnesse,
    Two tane away, thy labor will be lesse:
    With Muse upreard I meant to sing of armes,
    Choosing a subject fit for feirse alarmes:
    Both verses were alike till Love (men say)
    Began to smile and tooke one foote away.

    That Melville translation above feels all wrong. It's like he's reaching for something. I like the idea of translating just about anything into blank verse, but we've had developments since Shakespeare's time, Milton and Wordsworth for example; so modern blank verse doesn't sound that way anymore. If Melville isn't going to give a modern translation in a modern style, then what's the point of updating at all? Why not just take an older translation.

    The Dryden translation is dated and doesn't sound any more like Ovid but it's still better than Melville's if you want to go that route.

    Of bodies chang'd to various forms, I sing:
    Ye Gods, from whom these miracles did spring,
    Inspire my numbers with coelestial heat;
    'Till I my long laborious work compleat:
    And add perpetual tenour to my rhimes,
    Deduc'd from Nature's birth, to Caesar's times.

    The Humphries translation may not be perfect but it has the asset of at least sounding something like Ovid.

    I also mentioned my opinion here: http://www.online-literature.com/for...delbaum-s-Ovid

    For the Metamorphoses I'd definitely go with Rolfe Humphries over Mandelbaum. He's a little too clunky for such a smooth poet, and as someone above me has already noted, the rhyme jars on the ear.

    Here's Mandelbaum:

    Before the sea and lands began to be,
    before the sky had manteled every thing,
    then all of natures face was featureless-
    what men call chaos: undigested mass
    of crude, confused, and scumbled elements,
    a heap of seeds that clashed, of things mismatched.
    There was no Titan Sun to light the world,
    no crescent Moon- no Phoebe- to renew,
    her slender horns; in the surrounding air,
    earth's weight had yet to find it's balanced state;
    and Amphitrites arms had not yet stretched
    along the farthest margins of the land.
    For though the sea and land and air were there,
    the land could not be walked upon, the sea
    could not be swum, the air was without splendor:
    no thing maintained it's shape; all were at war;
    in one same body cold and hot would battle;
    the damp contended with the dry, things hard
    with soft, and weighty things with weightless parts.

    That just seems so passionless and dry to me. Ovid ought to be translated with the sensual luxuriance one would give to the writings of a French decadent (Baudelaire),

    You too Silenus, are on fire, insatiable lecher:
    Wickedness alone prevents you growing old.
    -Ovid, Fasti, Book I

    and the sort of exactness of phrase and poise which we find in scholars like Petrarch, Eliot, and Leopardi. It completely lacks the rhythm of Roman rhetoric which was as much a part of poetry then as it would be in the Renaissance. You don't get the feeling of how intensely conscious he is of poetic tradition. The phrases here don't even sound like they come from the right period. They should sound at least a little bit like Tibullus or Propertius, the way that Eliot sounds a little like Pound and Yeats.

    If I had
    A hundred tongues, a hundred mouths, a voice
    Of iron, I could not tell of all the shapes
    Their crimes had taken, or their punishments.
    -lines 835-838, Book VI, Virgil's Aeneid

    If I had a tireless voice, lungs stronger than brass, and many mouths with many tongues, not even so could I embrace them all in words for the theme surpasses my strength.-Tristia, Bk. I, v. ln. 43-74, Ovid

    Also, what's with some of his diction choices, "scumbled?"

    Here's the Humphries:

    Before the ocean was, or earth, or heaven,
    Nature was all alike, a shapelessness,
    Chaos, so-called, all rude and lumpy matter,
    Nothing but bulk, inert, in whose confusion
    Discordant atoms warred: there was no sun
    To light the universe; there was no moon
    With slender silver crescents filling slowly;
    No earth hung balanced in surrounding air;
    No sea reached far along the fringe of shore.
    Land, to be sure, there was, and air, and ocean,
    But land on which no man could stand, and water
    No man could swim in, air no man could breathe,
    Air without light, substance forever changing,
    Forever at war: within a single body
    Heat fought with cold, wet fought with dry, the hard
    Fought with the soft, things having weight contended
    With weightless things.

    He should be as humorous as Chaucer, the way Marlowe makes him:

    We which were Ovids five books, now are three,
    For these before the rest preferreth he:
    If reading five thou plainst of tediousnesse,
    Two tane away, thy labor will be lesse:

    Fun loving, but also moral:

    I saw a man who laughed at shipwrecks, drowned
    in the sea, and said: ‘The waves were never more just.’
    -Ovid's Tristia, Book V

    though not so severe as Horace, or pious as Virgil. One's a mercenary, the other a priest, but Ovid is a retiring man of letters. Raised to the purple, he's conscious of his aristocratic status and writes with a conscious stately nobility. Certain feelings, and people, are beneath him

    One person alone (and this itself is a great wrong)
    won’t grant me the title of an honest man.
    Whoever it is (for I’ll be silent still as yet about his name)
    -Ovid, Ibis tr. Kline

    People tend to think of Roman society as chauvinistic, but like Euripides before him he shows a deep concern for the plight of women. He frequently heaps praise and tenderness upon his loving wife and in the Heroides draws many subtle portraits women who have been ill treated by their paramours.

    Penelope to the tardy Ulysses:
    do not answer these lines, but come, for
    Troy is dead and the daughters of Greece rejoice.
    But all of Troy and Priam himself
    are not worth the price I've paid for victory.
    How often I have wished that Paris
    had drowned before he reached our welcoming shores.
    If he had died I would not have been
    compelled now to sleep alone in my cold bed
    complaining always of the tiresome
    prospect of endless nights and days spent working
    like a poor widow at my tedious loom.
    Imagining hazards more awful than real,
    love has always been tempered by fear:
    I was sure it was you the Trojans attacked
    and the name of Hector made me pale;
    if someone told the tale of Antilochus
    I dreamed of you dead as he had died;
    if they sang of the death of Menoetius' son,
    slain in armour not his own, I wept,
    because even clever tricks had failed
    -Ovid, Heroids tr.Isbell

    A monologue worthy of Browning.

    I don't know any one translation that captures these various sides of him, but Humphries is the best I know of for the Metamorphoses. Mandelbaum seemed like an also ran in his translations of Dante, not even rising to the level of Ciardi or Longfellow. It's been some time since I've read Melville, but if his Ovid is half as good as his work on Statius' Thebaid it should be fine:

    The strife of brothers and alternate reigns
    Fought for in impious hatred and the guilt
    Of tragic Thebes, these themes the Muses' fire
    Has kindled in my heart.

    Statius is the only writer who wears his learning on his sleeve more than Ovid. Each line of Melville's translation is lush, allusion laden, and delicious. But on the other hand, Humphries did put out a very readable Juvenal. If I recall correctly they had these beautiful long lines that show off Latin hexameter so well. I'm sure whichever you pick, it should turn out all right.

    Now I have done my work. It will endure,
    I trust, beyond Jove's anger, fire and sword,
    Beyond Time's hunger. The day will come, I know,
    So let it come, that day which has no power
    Save over my body, to end my span of life
    Whatever it may be. Still, part of me,
    The better part, immortal, will be borne
    Above the stars; my name will be remembered
    Wherever Roman power rules conquered lands,
    I shall be read, and through the centuries,
    If prophecies of bards are ever truthful,
    I shall be living, always.
    "So-Crates: The only true wisdom consists in knowing that you know nothing." "That's us, dude!"- Bill and Ted
    "This ain't over."- Charles Bronson
    Feed the Hungry!

  7. #22
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    Quote Originally Posted by AuntShecky View Post
    I agree with JCamillo about Ovid and especially Petrarch, and of course would include Homer and Virgil. I also agree about Dante. But let's face it--he wasn't exactly a barrel of laughs. Only one joke in the whole Divine Comedy (and a cheap fart joke at that.)

    I could never make a list. It would be far, far too lengthy and probably heavy with English poets as they formed the bulk of my education. I'm talking about the author of Beowulf, the Pearl poet, the author of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, Chaucer, Shakespeare, the metaphysical poets, Milton, and later, Pope and Dryden. Tennyson was a giant, and then Wordsworth. I could go on and on.

    See what I mean? Rather than list them or praise 'em I'd rather be reading 'em.
    Aye, Auntie. I do not even care for rankings much, but the comment is more at the baffling idea a list of 10 poets, almost all from the last centuries and 8 from english language is a good start and guide on western tradition. If anything, the western tradition is the re-telling of greek myths that Virgil and Ovid did latter Dante stabilished in his Limbo Chapter. That is Tradition.

    As dantes, such serious guy. Who would imagine, that according to old legends, he would spend the day complaing with a metalsmith that quoted one of his stanzas wrongly, until the poor dude pronouced it correctly?

  8. #23
    Alea iacta est. mortalterror's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by AuntShecky View Post
    I agree with JCamillo about Ovid and especially Petrarch, and of course would include Homer and Virgil. I also agree about Dante. But let's face it--he wasn't exactly a barrel of laughs. Only one joke in the whole Divine Comedy (and a cheap fart joke at that.)

    I could never make a list. It would be far, far too lengthy and probably heavy with English poets as they formed the bulk of my education. I'm talking about the author of Beowulf, the Pearl poet, the author of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, Chaucer, Shakespeare, the metaphysical poets, Milton, and later, Pope and Dryden. Tennyson was a giant, and then Wordsworth. I could go on and on.

    See what I mean? Rather than list them or praise 'em I'd rather be reading 'em.
    I remember at least two jokes in the Divine Comedy. First was that farce where the demons try to catch a soul but fall off the bridge into the boiling water themselves. The second was in Purgatory where Dante is at the level of the prideful who carry heavy weights on their backs crouched over to read a story about humility on the ground, and Dante hunches over in like fashion walking along to inspect it (because he'd been accused of pride himself presumably). Also, the part where he's beating a sinner in a river of sewage is a little funny. I rewrote that part myself once casting myself as Dante, Hemingway as Virgil, plus a fellow I despised in the other part, and it has always made me chuckle imagining such a revenge.

    There are parts of the Divine Comedy which are meant to be humorous, if we would only get the context. In some ways it is not unlike Lucian's fabulous True Story where he sails among the stars then visits the afterlife making many witty observations. Then he finds the afterlife full of celebrities and enumerates their punishments adding ""The guides told the life of each, and the crimes for which they were being punished; and the severest punishment of all fell to those who told lies while in life and those who had written what was not true, among whom were Ctesias of Cnidos, Herodotus and many more. On seeing them, I had good hopes for the future, for I have never told a lie that I know of. "" The irony is that the whole tale is a great big stupendous lie. I imagine Dante is having fun with the reader somewhat after this fashion as well when he describes who is where and what they are doing.
    "So-Crates: The only true wisdom consists in knowing that you know nothing." "That's us, dude!"- Bill and Ted
    "This ain't over."- Charles Bronson
    Feed the Hungry!

  9. #24
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    Well, it was comedy after all... had to be filled with moral ironies and puns. I mean, Ulysses dying for not reaching Heaven is ironic, even if not haha.

  10. #25
    Ecurb Ecurb's Avatar
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    How about Joseph Stalin (or is he not considered "Western")?

    (Ecurb, thinking outside the box.)

  11. #26
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    And Hitler for western art.
    Exit, pursued by a bear.

  12. #27
    Registered User Iain Sparrow's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by mona amon View Post
    And Hitler for western art.
    Oh you folks in India and your fascination with Hitler.

    I'm going to go with Dr.Seuss... probably the greatest American Poet... a fan I am.

  13. #28
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    ...
    Exit, pursued by a bear.

  14. #29
    Ecurb Ecurb's Avatar
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    I think Stalin the poet surpassed Hitler the artist (although I wouldn't really know). Stalin was apparently a reasonably respected published poet befote the Revolution. Also, his literary talents led him to leadership -- he was editor of Pravda early in his political career.

    I'll bet Churchill was a better painter than Hitler -- and Stalin and Churchill did win the War.

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