Imported Poems

You have a good point Countess, but I may disagree. Sometimes Byron is wordy to the point that eloquence is lost. Sometimes Whitman is able to be concise when Byron is a little wordy. Reading some John Muir presently, and he writes beautifully about this exact feeling for nature...I'll have to find some quotes for you, but he has found a medium between the two. On this particular theme.
Ciao, B

Lost me on the poetry. I just have no frame of reference for it. I either like or don't and almost 99% of the time do not 'get' it. I KNOW I'm missing out but this old dog is too lazy to STUDY it out. Wants to be entertained more then enlightened freely confessed. I do like the Wilde parts of your blogs as I think he is interesting.

Well, that passage is remarkably cose to Whitman, but what else? Just a few lines doesn't make a plagerizer. Plus it's not that Whitman was so original intellectully (really his ideas are right out of Emerson) but that he matched the form (a new free form of poetry) to the ideas. That was revolutionary and he was probably the first to capture or perhaps establish an American diction.

I think that sometimes a poet will dabble into something another poet wrote about when it is obviously something they feel passionate about. I tend to agree with Virgil on this, as if we only let one person write about loving their dog, then we would have a millon plagerisers. I love that Byron is the noted person for whom the comment "mad, bad, and dangerous to know." was originally made...so I've read somewhere. ...and I've been looking at several examples of Byron's poetry, and have to admit that the earlier comment about him being too wordy is perhaps incorrect. It appears that he is much less so in general. Mtpspr, I have found that the listening of poetry being read is much more digestable than frequent reading of it.

I was considering this very point of length last night, and wished I was living back then to tell him succinctness is not a sign of an inferior intelligence but rather a wiser one. (-: That said, while Byron is wordy - they didn't call him "prolific" for no good reason - his brilliance makes me willing to brook his periphrasis for the gold nuggets and diamonds. I must add these treasures are not to be found in fecal matter (as the euphemism goes) but rather amongst coins of lesser value.>>>>>>>>> As for Whitman, he is so very plain. He is a man dressed up in a 3 piece suit compared to Byron, who is always adorned in the most extravagant fashion - ie an Albanian brocade dress with detailed needlework, a fanciful turban, and carrying a long phallic rifle. I'm much more attracted to the romantic eccentric standing in the room than the simply dressed man (and come to think of it, Oscar Wilde was always flamboyantly adorned), but you are all men, so it doesn't suprise me you're drawn towards the austere while I - being a woman and an eccentric - am always drawn to the peacocks, especially when they preen prettily. LOL.
I like my verse like I like my men.