The greatest poet since Shakespeare

[whitman]

Yeats is the greatest poet since Shakespeare according to Michael Longley, how true is this?

[MorpheusSandman]

Everyone will have their own opinions, but if we're talking in terms of influence and import, then I'm not even sure Yeats would be in the top 5. Personally, I think Milton was was the greatest poet since Shakespeare, and I'd be tempted to even argue he was better. Why? Because Milton explored and perfected more genres and styles than even Shakespeare. Milton wrote THE English epic in Paradise Lost, but he also wrote close-to-definitive examples of the pastoral, elegy, ode, chamber drama, sonnet, and short lyric. After Milton, I think you'd have to put Wordsworth next, given his popularizing of romanticism that still reigns strongly today. After them, I think Blake, Keats, Eliot, and Yeats would all be in the conversation. Given the immense impact The Waste Land made on modern poetry, I'd be tempted to put Eliot 3rd.

[mortalterror]

Best since 1610?
1.Baudelaire
2.Milton
3.Jean Racine
4.Goethe
5.Leopardi

Yeats
Eliot
Neruda
Calderon
Wordsworth
Shelley
Whitman
Matsuo Basho
Nguyen Du
Keats
Browning
Tennyson

[stlukesguild]

If the term "great" takes into account the poet's impact upon subsequent poetry as well as his or her aesthetic merit (which is far more subjective) I would agree that Goethe, Milton, Wordsworth, Whitman, Baudelaire, Eliot, and Neruda must all make the short list... and quite possibly Blake and Victor Hugo as well. Leopardi, Keats, Shelley, Byron, Browning, Tennyson, Rilke, Rimbaud, Yeats, Garcia-Lorca, Montale, Pessoa, and Wallace Stevens would round out the "runners up".

[Charles Darnay]

I agree with Morpheus that Milton is the greatest since and possibly greatest English language poet (dare I extend it further). Paradise Lost demonstrates the Sublime through and through - from the tantalizing rhetoric of Satan to the inaccessibility of God - so good.

As far as use of language and subject, I do place Yeats pretty high: he would certainly make my short list.

[Anton Hermes]

That Ern Malley (http://www.ernmalley.com/malley_poetry.html)was the real deal.

[stlukesguild]

That Ern Malley was the real deal.

An amateurish effort at best compared to Thomas Chatterton, James Macpherson, and Pessoa.

[Anton Hermes]

An amateurish effort at best compared to Thomas Chatterton, James Macpherson, and Pessoa.
He aims...he shoots...he misses the joke.

[cafolini]

Let's face it. It was Donald duck, before and after shake the spear.

[stlukesguild]

He aims...he shoots...he misses the joke.

Unfortunately the "he" who missed the joke is not the "he" he assumes. A bit slow today?

[ennison]

Unless you are fluent in another language it is very difficult to compare poets from different cultures in a sensible way. So if the question was about English poets then I guess Milton has as good a shout as anyone. Yeats was a flying fruit cake from the off. Now THAT'S a way to get banned. Calling a spade a shovel.

[Anton Hermes]

Unfortunately the "he" who missed the joke is not the "he" he assumes. A bit slow today?
It was just a little gag at no one's expense, darling. No need for one of your pompous pronouncements. Or two.

[Corona]

I can't say if there's ONE poet one could call the "greatest" after Shakespeare, especially given the number of great poets who came after S. It would be reductive naming just one poet and I believe it also depends on how you define greatness: lyrical beauty, innovation, inventive, variety?
And another point not to be missed is that, like someone said, it's difficult judging poets from other countries; for language reasons, but also because of the different cultures: it's arguable how much does culture influence art, but it's a given understanding foreign art as a whole require a certain dose of knowledge, so there are too many factors to be take in account.
By the way: why does everyone always forget mentioning Paul Celan? :(

[mortalterror]

Unless you are fluent in another language it is very difficult to compare poets from different cultures in a sensible way.

Oh, is it? I'd never heard that before.

[ennison]

No? Well then since the thread assumes Macpherson and Milton can be compared and sensible judgement obtained compare this
Am faigh mi idir cuibhteas
Do mo dhroch luchd muinntir fein
Nach fhag a latha no dh oidhche mi
S mi air mo dhruim san fheidhe

To this
And azure wings, that up they flew so drest
And spake the truth of thee on glorious themes
Before the Judge; who thence forth bid thee rest
And drink thy fill of pure immortal springs.

[Eiseabhal]

I recognise the sonnet extract. One I learned by rote in school. The other extract is definitely not Macpherson though - reminds me of Grant but I don't think it's him. I agree that comparisons are invidious. We do it though.

[tallonrk1]

Eh, I'm going to have to tap into my own personal bias and say the greatest poet since Shakespeare is Robert Frost

[JackBarrattPoet]

English Language poets: Milton, Keats and Yeats

[JBI]

If the term "great" takes into account the poet's impact upon subsequent poetry as well as his or her aesthetic merit (which is far more subjective) I would agree that Goethe, Milton, Wordsworth, Whitman, Baudelaire, Eliot, and Neruda must all make the short list... and quite possibly Blake and Victor Hugo as well. Leopardi, Keats, Shelley, Byron, Browning, Tennyson, Rilke, Rimbaud, Yeats, Garcia-Lorca, Montale, Pessoa, and Wallace Stevens would round out the "runners up".

You are dealing with the problem of international reception though. For instance, the "great romantic poet" in China is Byron (probably because he is the weakest of the big 6, and the easiest to translate and "get"). The international reception of players us a determiner of influence, however, it is rarely properly paralleled by local reception.

In case and point, I love Leopardi, but I have virtually never seen his name even mentioned outside of Italian letters. I dislike Byron a lot, but he is the international Romantic, and was even the biggest of the 6 in his day. Wordsworth, I get the feeling, was known for his early, or weaker poems until the 20th century, when people again began to read him as a sort of philosophical argument, and appreciate more difficult works like the Prelude or Elegiac Stanzas. Still, his poem Ode is probably the best 19th century English poem.

Whitman has truly been an international poet, that is fore sure, and he basically broke the ground for everything that came after him. Alexander Pope, and even Dryden before him dominated the 18th century's style and thought, but we are not going to put him on the list are we? We certainly would if we wanted to note how he basically built Wordsworth's contrary voice.

This question then becomes confused. Goethe spoke of an international poetics being made, and his term "World Literature" as created by an easing of literary borders. Still, I cannot help but feel nothing has been further to the truth. The death of Latin culture basically killed universal humanism, and was replaced by the disastrous experience that was nationalism. Wordsworth, Coleridge even in their later lives end up feeding these nationalist institutions, and become "symbolic" of the English way - rather than revolutionary poets, they become nationalist symbols. Leopardi is abandoned, because he is an Italian.

Ironically it would seem the only country throughout the 19th century that was playing internationally, as far as I can see, is Germany, or what was made into Germany. In part this has to do with the fact that unification was delayed until 1871, and colonial projects were late in development. The German language academy then was far more accepting and appreciating than the English or French. The Dutch also, to an extent, can claim this. So, in a sense, we never really had a world literature.

Russian literature accepted its halted birth - despite its French-ism. Pushkin in a sense was a god of creation and national mythology, despite his sort of overly Byronic artwork. He is decidedly Russian, even more so than Tolstoy or Dostoevsky.

So what do we make of our internationalism? Do we read Russian authors as authors or as Russian? How then do we interpret influence. It's hard to read Whitman without a sense of "Move over world, America is here to create a new destiny."

So what is influence? Well, I think Whitman has natural influence, meaning that he is impossible to ignore, like the United States sort of. Leopardi is trapped in Italian, as are almost all post-Renaissance Italians. Chinese poets have been highly influential, but we simply have picked and chose authors up until the Tang. Though in terms of an international poetics, Li Bo (Li Po, Li Bai, Rihaku), is a 19th century Western Poet. He certainly had profound impact on Europe - enough to have a whole cycle of songs composed by Mahler.

In that sense this game is difficult. The Haiku has proven unbelievably influential in American poetics, yet are we going to credit Issa, or Basho, or Bushon? Or even the later poets that translated them?

Now, if we are going to talk about the greatest, how are we to evaluate? Poetry is chaos, in a sense. I think we are better off saying greatest poems.

[JCamilo]

What does not make sense is the idea of greatest anything be something objective unless it is Pele and football.

[hallaig]

What does not make sense is the idea of greatest anything be something objective unless it is Pele and football.

Now there's poetry.

You folk are obsessed with lists and hierarchies aren't you? Yeats was visionary but an old windbag and MacPherson a fraud, let's face it. Who's best is who you return to read, again and again.

[Nick Capozzoli]

Hard to find a writer to match Shakespeare in any language for his scope (consider all the plays, the sonnets, and his other works). Even if we limit discussion to English writers, there are many who match Shakespeare here and there, especially in shorter poems. I don't think any poet in any language can match Shakespeare for "scope."

I like to think about Shakespeare's equivalent in music. Who would that be? Maybe Bach? Well even Bach had an opinion about "the best" music. He is reputed to have admired the melody of the song, "Innsbruck Ich Muss Dich Lassen" and wished that he had written it.

[JBI]

Hard to find a writer to match Shakespeare in any language for his scope (consider all the plays, the sonnets, and his other works). Even if we limit discussion to English writers, there are many who match Shakespeare here and there, especially in shorter poems. I don't think any poet in any language can match Shakespeare for "scope."

I like to think about Shakespeare's equivalent in music. Who would that be? Maybe Bach? Well even Bach had an opinion about "the best" music. He is reputed to have admired the melody of the song, "Innsbruck Ich Muss Dich Lassen" and wished that he had written it.

I would say Goethe's Scope is wider than Shakespeare's.

In terms of scope, Shakespeare is hardly that great - Marlowe has an almost equal scope.

In fact, if we want to talk about scope, you miss some of the biggest names of scope - namely Augustine who's collected works are about 3 feet thick.

Still, that hardly matters. The greatest poet of the Chinese Han dynasty has 3 extant poems, each highly prized, and one of which in constant debate as to authorship. In reality his reputation rests entirely on one poem. Scope is not particularly important.

In terms of workings of genres and things, Goethe is far more successful than Shakespeare. With Shakespeare you have Dramas of all major genres, and then 1 long poem, 1 longish poem, and a sonnet cycle.

Christopher Marlowe, though having written less plays, has the same "scope" as Shakespeare.

Still, Cervantes' work rests on one book (or two halves) of a novel. I doubt people will question his depth.

If we are dealing with poetry then, and treating it as a genre separate from drama, Shakespeare probably wouldn't be top 3. His Sonnet's and two long poems are good, but no greater than the works of Alexander Pope, nor John Keats.

But we are avoiding the question, who is the greatest poet after Shakespeare, and lets say in English. A debate about whether or not Shakespeare is the greatest is silly.

As for English reputation, the tradition until the modern age held Milton at 2nd place. Perhaps that is a good spot to begin.

[MorpheusSandman]

I think that would depend on what one means by "scope". Is there any major types or class of people not depicted in Shakespeare's plays? Are there any major genres or sub-genres not tackled? part of his enduring reputation is his ability to appeal to critics, scholars, and readers, in general, with such a wide variety of interests. Historians, feminists, queers (as in queer theory), formalists, etc. have all found plenty to write about him. Most great writers attract at least more than one area of scholarship, but Shakespeare attracts them all, as far as I can tell. I also think it would depend on what's meant by "genre" when saying Goethe was more successful. It seems to me that Shakespeare wrote in all the major genres of his day, except non-Sonnet lyric poetry. I guess it's also fair to say that Shakespeare's longer poems are not terribly great, but, hell, considering how he owned the drama and sonnet, I think he needed to leave something for other aspiring poets to perfect.

Shakespeare's place as a poet if we remove the plays is an interesting discussion, and one that I've had with myself many times. I do think he's the supreme practitioner of the sonnet, and I argued why in a recent thread on this subject. But how does one compare mastery of one form to other poets who worked in many? It's a bit like trying to compare Emily Dickinson to Wordsworth in any meaningful way. Shakespeare has influenced my approach to the sonnet more than any other writer (and he did the same for Keats and many future sonneters), but one obviously has to look elsewhere for inspiration in any other poetic form or mode.

As I said earlier in the thread, as a pure poet (again, discounting drama) I definitely place Milton ahead of Shakespeare for all the reasons given.

[JBI]

I think that would depend on what one means by "scope". Is there any major types or class of people not depicted in Shakespeare's plays? Are there any major genres or sub-genres not tackled? part of his enduring reputation is his ability to appeal to critics, scholars, and readers, in general, with such a wide variety of interests. Historians, feminists, queers (as in queer theory), formalists, etc. have all found plenty to write about him. Most great writers attract at least more than one area of scholarship, but Shakespeare attracts them all, as far as I can tell. I also think it would depend on what's meant by "genre" when saying Goethe was more successful. It seems to me that Shakespeare wrote in all the major genres of his day, except non-Sonnet lyric poetry. I guess it's also fair to say that Shakespeare's longer poems are not terribly great, but, hell, considering how he owned the drama and sonnet, I think he needed to leave something for other aspiring poets to perfect.

Shakespeare's place as a poet if we remove the plays is an interesting discussion, and one that I've had with myself many times. I do think he's the supreme practitioner of the sonnet, and I argued why in a recent thread on this subject. But how does one compare mastery of one form to other poets who worked in many? It's a bit like trying to compare Emily Dickinson to Wordsworth in any meaningful way. Shakespeare has influenced my approach to the sonnet more than any other writer (and he did the same for Keats and many future sonneters), but one obviously has to look elsewhere for inspiration in any other poetic form or mode.

As I said earlier in the thread, as a pure poet (again, discounting drama) I definitely place Milton ahead of Shakespeare for all the reasons given.

Actually, Shakespeare misses many genres. Firstly, Prose fiction is absolutely absent from his work. Secondly, historical writings are absent. Personal essays are absent. Diaries are non-written. Even major collections of letters are not present. Beyond that, the big poetic genres of Epic and Romance do not exist in Shakespeare (though some argue he tried to do something with the history plays after these genres in a fashion).

In terms of "portraying everybody" that is merely a later interpretation. The idea of casting a character of Shakespeare as "gay" is based on a subtext brought to the book, rather than the book. There are no explicitly gay characters in the works, in the sense as gay as defined by engaging or explicitly desiring to engage in homosexual acts.

What Shakespeare's plays are, are plays. They are acted, and the personages are not real people, despite what some try to do with them. As Northrop Frye noted, the big metaphor behind all Shakespeare plays is that of the Stage - the Stage is like the world, and the world is like a giant stage, but they are not the same.

That being said, I am a big fan of Shakespeare, but he generally stuck to two genres - drama and sonnets. And the Sonnets, if we are to believe critics, were written when he could not write plays.

[MorpheusSandman]

When you said "genre" I was just considering poetic genres, not prose, history, essays, letters, etc. It's true he didn't write an epic, but many, many great poets don't, and most that do pale beneath the mountainous shadows of their predecessors. I was mostly thinking about dramatic genres. He did do Romances of a sort (at least, that's what some of his later work is often described as; it does share elements with the classic romance). Also, by "portraying everybody" I didn't have anything so specific in mind as gays, but merely a large swathe of diverse humanity. There may not be any explicitly gay characters, but I doubt Shakespeare was so obtuse as to not see the homosexual connotations in some of the lines in a play like Coriolanus. Lines like this:
Let me twine
Mine arms about that body, where against
My grained ash an hundred times hath broke
And scarr'd the moon with splinters: here I clip
The anvil of my sword, and do contest
As hotly and as nobly with thy love
As ever in ambitious strength I did
Contend against thy valour. Know thou first,
I loved the maid I married; never man
Sigh'd truer breath; but that I see thee here,
Thou noble thing! more dances my rapt heart
Than when I first my wedded mistress saw
Bestride my threshold.are more homoerotic than anything you find in Howl.

Overall, I think we simply had different things in mind with "genre", if by "genre" you're just considering drama and sonnets. I also consider all of the sub-genres within the drama as well, and I also consider how much they vary in terms of tone, characters, themes, drama, form, etc. An author could certainly write in more "genres" than drama and sonnets but maintain the same voice, style, characterizations, tone, themes, etc. in all of them. So when I consider Shakepseare's "scope" I was thinking more of what he accomplished within the "genres" in which he worked, and within those I see great scope, indeed.

[JBI]

When you said "genre" I was just considering poetic genres, not prose, history, essays, letters, etc. It's true he didn't write an epic, but many, many great poets don't, and most that do pale beneath the mountainous shadows of their predecessors. I was mostly thinking about dramatic genres. He did do Romances of a sort (at least, that's what some of his later work is often described as; it does share elements with the classic romance). Also, by "portraying everybody" I didn't have anything so specific in mind as gays, but merely a large swathe of diverse humanity. There may not be any explicitly gay characters, but I doubt Shakespeare was so obtuse as to not see the homosexual connotations in some of the lines in a play like Coriolanus. Lines like this: are more homoerotic than anything you find in Howl.

Overall, I think we simply had different things in mind with "genre", if by "genre" you're just considering drama and sonnets. I also consider all of the sub-genres within the drama as well, and I also consider how much they vary in terms of tone, characters, themes, drama, form, etc. An author could certainly write in more "genres" than drama and sonnets but maintain the same voice, style, characterizations, tone, themes, etc. in all of them. So when I consider Shakepseare's "scope" I was thinking more of what he accomplished within the "genres" in which he worked, and within those I see great scope, indeed.

Yes, but they are all of the same flavour, regardless of how delicious the taste.

Goethe certainly covered a much wider range. Which is not saying anything, my whole point was to refute the poster above me's off topic assertion of Shakespeare as God Almighty.

He was one of the better world poets, but the best? Well that is a matter of taste. Everybody is likely to pick the poet who is most respect in their respective first languages. Certainly I can think of 10 on the same level. It all comes down to personal taste.

[mortalterror]

Yes, but they are all of the same flavour, regardless of how delicious the taste.

Goethe certainly covered a much wider range. Which is not saying anything, my whole point was to refute the poster above me's off topic assertion of Shakespeare as God Almighty.

He was one of the better world poets, but the best? Well that is a matter of taste. Everybody is likely to pick the poet who is most respect in their respective first languages. Certainly I can think of 10 on the same level. It all comes down to personal taste.

I'd say that JBI is right. There are probably about ten world poets on the same level or nearly on the same level as Shakespeare. Firdawsi, Vyasa, Dante, Homer, Virgil, Valmiki, Aeschylus, Goethe, Euripides, Racine, Ovid, etc. And then there are a handful of great novelists who might also contest the prize of the world's greatest writer.

[MorpheusSandman]

FWIW, I wasn't attempting to argue that Shakespeare was "God Almighty" or even "the world's best poet ever," I was just curious about the comments regarding his "scope" and "genre" limitations. I don't like comparing poets of different languages, and I'm more than content with simply placing the best from each language in a worldwide pantheon and leaving it at that. I've said before that I don't even think Shakespeare was the best "poet" in English, and happen to prefer Milton, even though I prefer Shakespeare as an author overall (mainly because dramatic poetry is such a distinctly different mode than lyric poetry).

[JBI]

FWIW, I wasn't attempting to argue that Shakespeare was "God Almighty" or even "the world's best poet ever," I was just curious about the comments regarding his "scope" and "genre" limitations. I don't like comparing poets of different languages, and I'm more than content with simply placing the best from each language in a worldwide pantheon and leaving it at that. I've said before that I don't even think Shakespeare was the best "poet" in English, and happen to prefer Milton, even though I prefer Shakespeare as an author overall (mainly because dramatic poetry is such a distinctly different mode than lyric poetry).

As I was saying, I was commenting on another poster...

[Ser Nevarc]

Ahh...Milton I guess