Wordsworth vs. Whitman

[Shea]

I have yet to study that much into Wordsworth, unfortunately, I've been introduced to him in a survey course, so any further study will have to be after I graduate.

BTW, I thought that Wordsworth broke his friendship with Colerigde because Coleridge was a moocher. Whatever the case, both their poetry seemed to make more sense when they were working together. Didn't Coleridge write Kubla Kahn after they had their falling out? It was a good poem but extremely bizzare. Could be because it was based on an opium dream. Those crazy Romantics!

[Sindhu]

My thesis work included some pretty intensive work on the Romantic poets, including their letters, notebooks and so on.
Well, yes, technically speaking I suppose you could say Coleridge due to a life long inabilty to take care of practical affairs and to say "no" WAS a "moocher" but he didn't do much of his mooching on Wordsworth- WW was far too clever to allow that! And don't even get me started on the kind of personae the two men reveal in their "private" writings. Coleridge might have been an addict and a muddler but that was about it. WW went to the extent of being completely out of line- he didn't want to be friends with Coleridge, OK, I can understand that. That's one thing- but it's quite another to sit down and dash off letters to all mutual friends and even acqintances saying THEY shouldn't help his ex-friend either, which is exactly what WW did. Like I said, don't even get me started! Mind you, there's lots of material I like in WW's poetry, but as a person, from the available data he was @#%@
I've been wanting to put that down in writing somewhere for a looong time! Thanks for giving me the chance

[Shea]

No problem!

I'm glad you were able to share that. My instructor touched on that very briefly (I mean about Wordsworth telling people not to help Colridge). That's what I hate about survey courses. Their required, but they don't allow you to really get into what your studying. I suppose I'll have to wait until I start going for my masters to really get into the extra-textual stuff.

Thanks for the info!

[MacBeth]

If you can get Wordsworth at his best, he will outdo Whitman (whom I also loath) by far. But a selct few of Wordsworth's poems will put one to sleep. Ezra Pound said, "The neophyte poet should read only as much Wordsworth as is bearable."

[Isagel]

Originally posted by MacBeth
Ezra Pound said, "The neophyte poet should read only as much Wordsworth as is bearable."

Can´t stop giggling. I like Wordsworth. His poems was the first poems I read in english, and they captured me. Their beauty. like the daffodils he writes about makes - to paraphrase - my heart dance. But Whitman gives me more than that delight.
I adore Whitman, almost to the degree of wanting to snarl and defend him. I do not find him selfabsorbed , but absorbed with life itself. This is my favorite poems by him, and I felt a need to share it.

I wish I too could translate grass. I wish I could describe what the poem does to me. But I just show the poem instead.

A child said, What is the grass?
Walt Whitman
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

A child said, What is the grass? fetching it to me with full
hands;
How could I answer the child?. . . .I do not know what it
is any more than he.

I guess it must be the flag of my disposition, out of hopeful
green stuff woven.

Or I guess it is the handkerchief of the Lord,
A scented gift and remembrancer designedly dropped,
Bearing the owner's name someway in the corners, that we
may see and remark, and say Whose?

Or I guess the grass is itself a child. . . .the produced babe
of the vegetation.

Or I guess it is a uniform hieroglyphic,
And it means, Sprouting alike in broad zones and narrow
zones,
Growing among black folks as among white,
Kanuck, Tuckahoe, Congressman, Cuff, I give them the
same, I receive them the same.

And now it seems to me the beautiful uncut hair of graves.

Tenderly will I use you curling grass,
It may be you transpire from the breasts of young men,
It may be if I had known them I would have loved them;
It may be you are from old people and from women, and
from offspring taken soon out of their mother's laps,
And here you are the mother's laps.

This grass is very dark to be from the white heads of old
mothers,
Darker than the colorless beards of old men,
Dark to come from under the faint red roofs of mouths.

O I perceive after all so many uttering tongues!
And I perceive they do not come from the roofs of mouths
for nothing.

I wish I could translate the hints about the dead young men
and women,
And the hints about old men and mothers, and the offspring
taken soon out of their laps.

What do you think has become of the young and old men?
What do you think has become of the women and
children?

They are alive and well somewhere;
The smallest sprouts show there is really no death,
And if ever there was it led forward life, and does not wait
at the end to arrest it,
And ceased the moment life appeared.

All goes onward and outward. . . .and nothing collapses,
And to die is different from what any one supposed, and
luckier.

[Sunny]

Originally posted by MacBeth
If you can get Wordsworth at his best, he will outdo Whitman (whom I also loath) by far. But a selct few of Wordsworth's poems will put one to sleep. Ezra Pound said, "The neophyte poet should read only as much Wordsworth as is bearable."

Hi, guy, i am a stranger here. i coudn't fully understand what you had said above for my mother tounge is not english. what puzzled me most is 'But a selct few of Wordsworth's poems will put one to sleep.' Did you mean that a select few of Wordsworth's poems are really wonderful, just like lullabies that can make people fall into sleep peacefully, or those are boring, awful ones that make people drowsy when read it? i'm not sure what you mean. Could you please give me some explanations? thanks a million.

PS: Ezra Pound said, "The neophyte poet should read only as much Wordsworth as is bearable." What does this mean?I am mainly confused by the phrase 'as much....as' in that sentence.

Yesterday I read I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud , a most noted and beautiful peom of Wordsworth i think. It attracts me so much that I can't stop but reading it over and over again. But other works of Wordsworth are a little difficult to me to read,i think,so i need help!!

thank you!

[Shea]

Originally posted by Sunny
what puzzled me most is 'But a selct few of Wordsworth's poems will put one to sleep.' Did you mean that a select few of Wordsworth's poems are really wonderful, just like lullabies that can make people fall into sleep peacefully, or those are boring, awful ones that make people drowsy when read it? i'm not sure what you mean. Could you please give me some explanations? thanks a million.

I'm pretty sure he was talking about them being boring and making you drowsy, but I haven't come across them just yet in Wordsworth.

PS: Ezra Pound said, "The neophyte poet should read only as much Wordsworth as is bearable." What does this mean?I am mainly confused by the phrase 'as much....as' in that sentence.

I think also that Ezra meant that one shouldn't read more of Wordsworth's poems if they don't like them.

The English language does have rather funny phrases that don't always mean what they say. A friend of mine once went on a trip to Australia and at dinner, the people he was staying with offered him more food, but he refused saying that he was "stuffed". In America that means that your full of food and can't eat anymore. But evidently in Australia it means your pregnant! They had a pretty hardy laugh over that one!

[Sunny]

hahahaha, it's so funny. thank you very much, shea. i'm so glad that i can get your help, reallly. I think cultrural gaps can cause many funny or embarrassed things. I am so interested in finding or listening to these things. any funny things will be my favorite. i awfully like humor stories which can make me laugh loudly. haha. i think humor is the most necessary thing in our lives.

[Sunny]

Just now i read another three poems of Wordsworth. Composed upon Westminster Bridge, She Dwelt Among the Untrodden Ways and the Solitary Reaper

So beautiful. Now I deeply attracted by Wordsworth's lyrical poems. All of three made me imagine and then became peaceful, and then thought of some melancholy prictures in mind. Can't describe what are they. Maybe a kind of loneliness or sorrow.

I don't know much about Whitman. Does his style familiar with Wordsworth's? Is there any one who can reccomend to me some of his works?

thanks!

[Shea]

Glad I could help If you like funny stories or situations keep you eye on the general chat thread. I still giggle over some things even after I've left my computer.

[Sunny]

OK, Shea, i will sure to pay attention to the general thread chat.
You must be a very kind and humorous companion to you friends. easy-going, eloquent.....haha, i've already been in love with this site, and hope can be accepted by all of you.

[Shea]

Aww... you make me blush! This is a great site, hope to see you often!

[Sindhu]

Originally posted by Shea
I'm pretty sure he was talking about them being boring and making you drowsy, but I haven't come across them just yet in Wordsworth.

I'm going to take a positively sadistic pleasure in pating some lines then!

"You see a little muddy pond
Of water, never dry,
I've measured it from side to side:
'Tis three feet long, and two feet wide." {from- "The Thorn", Wordsworth} Could description go further!!?

AND this when he HAS got hold of a potentially good story in this piece, of a mother suspected of child murder, faithless love etc and THIS is how he leads into it:
The refrain is
"Oh misery! oh misery!
"Oh woe is me! oh misery!" and the poet wonders
"And wherefore does she cry? --
"Oh wherefore" wherefore? tell me why
"Does she repeat that doleful cry?"

In my opinion, I'm not interested enough to find out and I'm glad that WW says:

"I cannot tell; I wish I could;
For the true reason no one knows,"

But then again, I suppose I shouldn't say this sends you to sleep, it is, again IMO, so awful it will keep you awake! "Three feet long and two feet wide" indeed! "Measured it from side to side"- He really
must have been jobless!

PS. I remembered this poem and tracked it down on the net to save typing and lo and behold it turns up in an online anthology of bad poetry!

BTW, I hope no one thinks I'm antiWW, there are several shorter poems as well as large sections of Prelude and Excursion which I think are SUPERLATIVELY good. But really, on occasion.....
Sindhu.

[avid_reader]

Until i came into this forum I never knew (rather never thought) that WW had written some poems just for the heck of it !!
Well !! one learns new things always .. one travels and travels towards one's Ithaca "to learn and go on learning from those who know"
But his famous poems are really good . Our high school teacher simply adored WW. Probably thats why I wouldnt say anything against the great man even if he wrote 99 bad verses and only 1 good poem. (logic/reason stand aside plz)
Whitman .. i havent read .. probably one of these days, i should !

[emily655321]

Originally posted by Sunny
[B]Just now i read another three poems of Wordsworth. Composed upon Westminster Bridge, She Dwelt Among the Untrodden Ways and the Solitary Reaper[B]

Sunny, "She Dwelt Among the Untrodden Ways" has always been my favorite Wordsworth poem. I'm glad you like it too.

I like both Wordsworth and Whitman, although for different reasons (and different moods). Wordsworth is very straightforward and sing-songy, but the imagery is still beautiful and melancholy. It's kind of sitting-under-a-tree-on-a-sunny-afternoon mindless prettiness.

I used to agree with one early critic who said that Whitman read like "a shopping list." Until 11th and 12th grade English class when we spent whole classes analyzing single poems, and I discovered that his poems did indeed have a subtle, innovative structure, and the more layers you peel away the more there is to find. I was amazed to reread poems after taking the time to discover all the subtle nuances, and be enthralled by what had before sounded like random "shopping list" sentences. Reading Whitman is a lot more akin to reading a Russian author, i.m.o. -- you have to be in the mood to give all your attention, absorb, go back, peel away, look in the corners, reread, reread, reread.

After really looking into their personal styles, it seems bizarre to me to try to compare these two guys.