Byron, Shelley or Keats?

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Originally Posted by stlukesguild

I might also note that there are any number of poets of great merit who never mastered or even attempted epic poetry: Petrarch, Cavalcanti, Donne, Traherne, Rilke, Heine, Garcia-Lorca, Baudelaire, Whitman, Dickinson, Verlaine... to say nothing of Japanese and Chinese poets, etc...

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Yes, but as I've already pointed out, Petrarch composed Africa. While I do believe that all of the poets you name with the possible exceptions of Cavalcanti and Traherne, whom I'm less familiar with, deserve to be ranked at least as highly as any of the Romantics, I'm not sure that they all surpass them. I would also like to float the hypothesis that no truly great artist succeeds to canonical greatness without attempting that one really big venture, the one that a minor talent could not even attempt, or if they did their mediocrity would show in every brushstroke.

Rilke is very accomplished at what he does, but every poem of his leaves me wanting something more. He is like a beautiful flightless bird. Everything is there which is required, except for one thing. He has rhythm, and diction, a capacity for depth and aphorism which never attains to real development. Each of his poems is like, "Here's an interesting thought I had." To which I'm like, "Yes, that is interesting. Would you maybe like to develop that thought further and see where it goes?" He's the premature ejaculator of modern poetry. As curious and visionary as his style is, it stops where Blake would just be beginning. His little bon mots are the sorts of things a really great poet would use as a point of departure and a way of springing into something altogether different. They should be gateways and he's using them as ends in themselves.

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Originally Posted by stlukesguild

I would also note that any attack upon the Romantics for their failure to achieve a great unified epic poetry is also unfair when one considers the circumstances of the poets. Milton was in his 60s when he completed Paradise Lost. Dante began the Comedia in his mid-40s and continued until his death. Virgil was well into his 40s when he began the Aeneid. Byron was dead at 36. Shelley is dead at 29; Keats at 26. How well remembered would Dante, Milton, or Virgil have been had they died at such an early age? Would they be able to rival or surpass Keats and Byron? Certainly Coleridge has no one to blame but himself and quite probably his drug abuse for his early aesthetic "death"... excepting his critical writings. And Wordsworth burns out early... but his earlier work is laden with some marvelous stuff... and with the Prelude he may just come closest to a "modern" successful epic (not to forget Byron's Don Juan).

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I'm not particularly interested in who the best writer was aged 25-30. I'm interested in their results. You can't know what they would have gone on to do, and I don't think we should calculate their promise in with the actual accomplishments which they did achieve. Buchner might have been the next Goethe if he'd lived past the age of 24. So what? He didn't. Personally, I believe Rimbaud's reputation would have suffered if he'd continued to write, but I can't know that for sure. Lot's of people's nephews write very well for a five year old. That is not what is at issue here.

By the time they were my age Moliere was a failed actor, Thomas Dekker was in prison, and Keats had been dead a year. Jesus Christ and Alexander the Great both croaked at 33. I'd better get cracking! This sort of age specific intelligence is perhaps useful as a guideline to the living, but not terribly helpful when it comes to judging art and ability.

I would also like to float the hypothesis that no truly great artist succeeds to canonical greatness without attempting that one really big venture, the one that a minor talent could not even attempt...

On one hand, I question the concept. Petrarch is largely known for his Canzoniere... certainly not for his unfinished epic, Africa. I would argue that Dickinson is unquestionably one of the most brilliant poets... but she never even attempts anything that extends beyond a page. Checkov... Borges... Kafka... and even your beloved Hemingway are largely recognized for their short stories. What epic work did Donne produce? Tu Fu, Li Po and Wang Wei... generally accepted as the greatest poets of China... and to most Chinese... generally accepted as the greatest aesthetic achievements of Chinese art... are all known for rather brief, lyrical poetry. And in the visual arts? Well we might accept the notion that Monet's suites or series of paintings (Rouen Cathedral, Haystacks, etc...) amount to something of a single grand or epic work of art... but what of Van Gogh? Degas? or many others among the giants?

At the same time... I question what exactly amounts to a "big" work? Are we speaking only of the single large unified work? I would argue that Whiman's Leaves of Grass or Baudelaire's Les Fleurs du Mal are "big works" in almost every sense of the word. Schubert's song (or lieder) cycles such as Die Winterreise or Schwanengesang can hold their own against the strongest of symphonies or operas. On the other hand... I do agree that it takes more than a few perfect short poems to gain one canonical status.

Borges had a short story (or essay... one can never remember... genres being so fluid in Borges) in which he looked at the question of the Spanish poet who composed the one never-to-be-forgotten perfect sonnet... the poem in which every last syllable is wrought with the perfection of a master jeweler... in which the entire poem would be diminished were a single word to be displaced. This he looks at in in comparison with Cervantes. Borges admits that Cervantes masterwork, Don Quixote is greatly flawed. He notes the author's prolonged fawning toward patrons... certain passages... even narrative developments which exhibit unquestionable clumsiness... and most damaging... the inclusion of Cervantes' own horrible poetry. In spite of this, Borges comes to the conclusion that Don Quixote is indisputably the greater work of art... its failings owing much to the fact that its aim is so high... it attempts so much more... and in most instances it succeeds.

I'm not particularly interested in who the best writer was aged 25-30. I'm interested in their results. You can't know what they would have gone on to do, and I don't think we should calculate their promise in with the actual accomplishments which they did achieve.

Certainly... we can only judge the work that exists... not what "might have been". What does exist is still pretty damn good. One might easily point out that Keats and Shelley and Byron (etc...) have produced a body of literature that has surpassed many other poets who long outlived them. They can't compare with Goethe, Dante, Homer, Virgil, Milton, Chaucer, Ovid, Firdowsi? Not too many... including a great many who had far more time to do so... can come close to that. Again, I have never been one to suggest that the Romantics might in any way rival Dante or Shakespeare... nor am I one not to recognize that there are many others of equal merit who are under-appreciated or under-recognized. Rather than needing to knock the Romantics down a few notches, I would prefer rather to suggest a few others whose works might be raised up in recognition.

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Originally Posted by stlukesguild

On one hand, I question the concept. Petrarch is largely known for his Canzoniere... certainly not for his unfinished epic, Africa.

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Yes, but how many of Milton's Latin poems spring to mind either? Why is the name Maffeo Vegio so rarely in anyone's mouth? Didn't Eliot write some poems in French? I think that the estimation of many works by artists who wrote in multiple languages often suffer from the language barrier. The regular political incentives are not there for either the French or English establishments to get a hold on Eliot's orphans and enshrine them as they may deserve. I don't think it's to far a stretch to suppose that The Canzoniere has remained Petrarch's most enduring monument because it was one of the few works he wrote in Italian.

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Originally Posted by stlukesguild

I would argue that Dickinson is unquestionably one of the most brilliant poets... but she never even attempts anything that extends beyond a page. Checkov... Borges... Kafka... and even your beloved Hemingway are largely recognized for their short stories.

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Most assuredly, the talent is there; but the ambition is lacking. Dickinson is as good at what she does as anybody. She piles up a mountain of little gems. Who has more? Still, even collectively, they cannot do what Pharsalia does. I'm a big believer in compression, in "less is more", but sometimes "more is more" too.

A few years ago I tried to place each of Shakespeare's plays into seven categories of quality. Then I made another ranking Hemingway's. I have to admit that Hemingway only reached the third tier of my Shakespeare ranks. He was the best writer of his time but he did not write the best books. He never goes for it, like say Tolstoy would. I do not like Tolstoy much but I appreciate what he was trying to do. Hemingway himself understood this fact. He wrote "If only Turgenev had written War and Peace." The best writers so rarely meet with the best subjects, styles, and themes. Fitzgerald is not as good a writer as Hemingway but he wrote the better book. I am not questioning the potential, or the talent of these writers. I am questioning how far they fulfilled that potential.

Artistically, I believe that the novel, the epic, the feature, the full length play, are the longest forms in their genres and the hardest to do well. Any author of any worth should recognize the potential of these forms, understand that they provide the greatest challenges and scope to show off his ability, and should compose in them.

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Originally Posted by stlukesguild

Borges had a short story (or essay... one can never remember... genres being so fluid in Borges) in which he looked at the question of the Spanish poet who composed the one perfect sonnet... the poem in which every last syllable is wrought with the perfection of a master jeweler... in which the entire poem would be diminished were a single word to be displaced... in comparison with Cervantes. Borges admits that even Cervantes masterwork, Don Quixote is greatly flawed. He notes the author's fawning toward prolonged patrons, certain passages... even narrative developments which exhibit unquestionable clumsiness... and most damaging... the inclusion of Cervantes own horrible poetry. In spite of this, Borges comes to the conclusion that Don Quixote is indisputably the greater work of art... its failings owing to the fact that its aim is so high... it attempts so much more... and in most instances it succeeds.

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Yes, I think that's something like what I had in mind.

Writing virtual essays on other poets may be quite illuminating, but I think the thread is concerned with Byron, Shelley and Keats.

Well, I suppose, but isn’t about who is the favorite poet? To some, to determine the favorite poet, we must see the entire history of poetry….

Mortalterror:

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How could it have replaced the epic when it co-existed with the epic for thousands of years? You see similar patterns of interrelated poems in Virgil's Georgics, Statius' Silvae, Petrarch's Canzoniere, and Spenser's Amoretti. These same gentlemen would go on to write The Aeneid, The Thebaid, Africa, and The Faerie Queene. I see no contradiction. That's like how Faulkner claims that his collection of short stories Go Down, Moses is a novel because of the structure and thematic unity. Groups of short stories are still groups of short stories any way you slice them, just as groups of poems are still groups of poems, and they haven't replaced the novel have they?

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While I agree with you that the notion is not replaced, just no longer valued... I would not go as futher as the group of short stories turning in novel. That is editing… Homer books are put together by others, Decameron can certainly be split in short stories, isn’t Satyricon also put together by other and not the Petronius?
I think the point is that epic is being replaced by the notion of long length poems. I would argue that after the XIX prose writers have finally developed the language of the prose that Baudelaire claim “do poetry even in prose” was followed by many. Joyce was doing it, Borges also (although not in long poems), Guimarães Rosa also… If other ways of expression were developed, could we in any sense blame anyone for preferring this other way, especially if they managed to succeed?
Also, there is things that cannot be said in short poems and need length, that is true. But the reversal is also correct. If a good writer job is picking the perfect word, in the perfect time, then those who do it in short ways are mastering perfection.
I think my reference to Dante may have been misunderstood. I have no interest on rankings. I used Dante because to me he is a symbol of perfect poet – anything I read (even obviously outdated works like Monarchy) have a great quality, what we should call genius - he is the guy who can come to Shakespeare and frown. He wrote the Divine Comedy, which is arguably (arguably, because at some point literary criticism have no mathematical precision) the best work ever written. I only suggest that great poets are those who can almost go up to Dante level once or while. I do not think they are in a line, where number 3 eliminated 8, I can and I think anyone in this world who likes great poetry must know Ode to a Nightingale as much it must know Lusidadas. How close are them from perfection? Too close, so we better have them all.
I also agree the age that x, y died is irrelevant. Of course, when seeing Keats there is a sensation of loss because his development is amazing. What he could be is a great source of inspiration. The aforementioned Wordsworth, Dickinson were not, when they grew old, some spark of their originality and energy was lost or never translated to verse again.
As ambition, I somehow agree. I think the Divine Comedy was only possible because the ambition of Dante, Finnegans Wake also… They risk a lot with a great capacity. But Borges aesthetical ambition was immense also when he proposed to risk Dom Quixote and wrote Pierre Menard. Lyrical Ballads as a whole was very ambitious. And even those kings of “I am nobody” like Emily Dickinson and Fernando Pessoa are ambitious in risking with oblivion and memory, hiding themselves in every little poem or personality they created. I do not think we should equate ambition with size.
And I think you are unfair comparing Hemingway with Shakespeare. It is Shakespeare, Milton would not be able to rank as high as him either, neither Goethe. Forget ranks.

Stlukesguild

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Indeed, I see no reason why an "epic" work might not deal with such a diversity. But do we imagine that the "epic" must be limited to "poetic" form only? And speaking of such... has anyone read Kazantzakis' The Odyssey: A Modern Sequel?

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Nope, I haven’t .Ok, epic narrative has rules and to our world it needs change, so anything is possible. I see no reason to call it Epic or not. I would argue that a considerable trait of Homer and other epic writers is the richness of images with the flow of action. I would say we have visual arts today too competitive to allow epic poetry freedom or exposition. (
As Blake, I agree with you. And while he had the kind of mind that could give us an epic, why would he. The form of his poems were suited, worked, almost perfectly. I do not believe in unnecessary need to accommodate to systems or styles, rather a harmony of form and content. Or Emily Dickinson. How strange would see her bumblebee turned in a Smiurg…
That bring Borges back, possible because Borges had the sensibility and capacity to analyze the past of literature and express it like few… it is like one of his other favorite appropriations, Liebniz heavenly library… it would have only several volumes of the perfect book (Eneid) or several books, those minor with flaws?
That is part of Borges go against Cervantes, he got a lot of abuse for suggesting that Quevedo should have been the writer. Lately, he give up this position and said Quixote had the Writer that made it possible… Could you imagine the satire of Quixote in alexandrine verses?
Greatness does not lies on Size, Tchekhov is certainly as big as Tolstoy or Dostoievisky.

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Originally Posted by JCamilo

As ambition, I somehow agree. I think the Divine Comedy was only possible because the ambition of Dante, Finnegans Wake also… They risk a lot with a great capacity. But Borges aesthetical ambition was immense also when he proposed to risk Dom Quixote and wrote Pierre Menard. Lyrical Ballads as a whole was very ambitious. And even those kings of “I am nobody” like Emily Dickinson and Fernando Pessoa are ambitious in risking with oblivion and memory, hiding themselves in every little poem or personality they created. I do not think we should equate ambition with size.

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No, of course not. But size is a challenge. It is one of the best tests we can put our poets through, and I think there is a passage to greatness, a series of escalating trials, which modern poets don't deign to traverse anymore. I think it is only natural that a prose stylist, if he is any good, should start with short stories and move up to the novel. I think Virgil is the perfect model for poetry. He set himself increasingly difficult artistic tasks. First he wrote the Eclogues in imitation of Theocritus. Then he wrote the Georgics, a more ambitious work in imitation of a greater poet: Hesiod. For his coup de grace he writes the Aeneid in imitation of Homer himself. In doing so he shows himself a master to be reckoned with, and an equal to those he invites comparison to.

Muhammad Ali was not always Muhammad Ali, and I don't mean that he was once known as Cassius Clay. Cassius was an excellent boxer but not a great boxer, if you catch my meaning. All of the ingredients were there for him to make the transformation into what we now consider his natural form, but something external, something he couldn't create for himself was missing: an opponent. A worthy opponent is the vital ingredient in making any superb athlete into a great icon. You can say that Muhammad Ali owes his entire reputation to the stature of Joe Frazier and George Foreman, the obstacles he overcame to become a champion. He isn't great for the way he walloped Chuvalo or Quarry. The best need to fight the best, in boxing as in the arts. It is only in this heightened competition that we force ourselves to dig deep and find what is superlative. A championship boxer fights ten and twelve round fights (used to be 15) whereas a contender can get away with less. These are the ways that the men distinguish themselves from the pretenders.

If Shelley had wanted to distinguish himself from Dickinson, or if any of the three we are discussing had wanted to distinguish themselves from each other, then they need those championship rounds. They need to challenge a champion for a title. I see inklings of this in Keat's Hyperion, and in Shelley's verse play Prometheus Unbound. Although, as they stand they are incomplete, not quite worthy of their antecedents.

I disagree. Poetry is short in length today, because there is generally no point of it being longer.

Homer came out of the oral tradition, and because of that, he wrote in a metre, in verse, out of cognitive necessity - it is easier to memorize rhythm than prose.

Virgil started short poems, but in truth, his epic was a counter-Homer, as you know - he was rivaling Homer. That can be traced down to Beowulf, which has the same Homeric necessity, and to The Song Of Roland. But after that, somehow the tradition seems to return to written ones.

You have, essentially, the Virgilian imitators, and nationalist icons. The Cid, the Nibelungenlied, dozens of Latin Epics - all following the lead of Virgil. Dante too comes out as a follower of Virgil, quite literally, but takes his subject in a different direction - he deals with contemporary issues - he deals with contemporary thought, and not about nationalist thought, as seen in Cantar de Mio Cid. Dante, since I guess he could not play the nationalist card, he belonging to Florence, essentially a city state, instead turned to the thought of his day, the Dolce Stil Novo for his core, meanwhile following a vague classical model. The difference is though, Dante radically changed it - made it radically "Italian", and in result, redefined the epic entirely.

The epic tradition though, is a tradition. As stated before, the Japanese tradition works with shorter poems, building on each other with allusion, and to an extent, the classical Chinese tradition worked on short poems, building on each other by making slight changes to classical texts, by altering things, by "honoring the masters". The epic wasn't the core - the lyric was.

In a world where Virgil isn't taught in schools, where he isn't the central text, what place could the epic have? The epic depends upon the epic tradition, as the Japanese and Chinese traditions suggest. If no one cares really about the epic tradition, and people are more interested in the lyric tradition, why bother with an epic.

The only point of writing an epic in verse today, besides your showing off bit, would seem to be that one can have freedom of language - could write in poetic style.

But quite frankly, what is the point? Wouldn't prose offer the same thing, and now I think of Moby Dick. Wouldn't it offer one the same room for narrative, and I think of James Joyce, or even The Old Man and The Sea. The point is, there is no point in writing an epic - the metre isn't really of interest anymore. Metric poetry and formalism in general seem to have been beaten for more freedom, despite some poets reluctance to move on. There is no purpose to imitate the classics anymore. There is no point in making poetry that can be memorized more easily, since we have cheap publishing, and would just rely on the text. There is no point in writing an epic.


That being said, the best example of long poetry surviving would have to be T.S. Eliot in English these past 100 years. Two long works, The Wasteland (called by Pound the longest poem ever written) and The Four Quartets, show that one doesn't really need to be in the epic vein in order to write long poetry. The Anthology and the verse novel too allow for experimentation with longer forms. But the Epic itself is a dated concept - the structure cannot work, and the imitation of classical examples will be laughed at.


The insistence on long poetry being better than short I find is also problematic. It's so western, and datedly western, in perspective, that it fails to realize that people have been challenging that very notion for hundreds of years.

It's like saying Dan Brown is a better writer than Alice Munro, because Alice Munro only writes short stories. Short stories are a legitimate form, away from novels. Flannery O'Connor proved that to an extent, as did Italo Calvino, and Borges - it is the Anthology which creates the long work - the short story anthology eventually functions as a link between the stories, and creates a long form, the same way the poetry anthology works to create a longer poem out of short lyrics.

I think the best example would be The Guyana Quartet by Wilson Harris, where 4 novellas are really one connected story. But there are looser forms in general. I think the give away though, is that anthologies all have names, and aren't simply called "new stories from x year to y year". Any critical reading of an anthology naturally takes into account the anthology as a whole, thereby rendering the little pieces aspects of a larger piece.


Either way though, who really cares about epics. There is a reason they all have failed pretty much since Milton, (whose poem by the way I would argue fails to "justify the ways of God to men", and succeeds for the "wrong" reasons).

Long poetry works - epics for the most part do not, and will not. We don't need them anymore, we don't seem to want them anymore, and there doesn't seem to be a point to them anymore. We have adopted new forms, and those forms will be challenged and judged.

And that is why one should not read "selected poems" but rather not reread selections from collected poems.

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Originally Posted by mortalterror

No, of course not. But size is a challenge. It is one of the best tests we can put our poets through, and I think there is a passage to greatness, a series of escalating trials, which modern poets don't deign to traverse anymore. I think it is only natural that a prose stylist, if he is any good, should start with short stories and move up to the novel. I think Virgil is the perfect model for poetry. He set himself increasingly difficult artistic tasks. First he wrote the Eclogues in imitation of Theocritus. Then he wrote the Georgics, a more ambitious work in imitation of a greater poet: Hesiod. For his coup de grace he writes the Aeneid in imitation of Homer himself. In doing so he shows himself a master to be reckoned with, and an equal to those he invites comparison to.

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I agree that size is a challenge, but only a challenge if your desire (Or aesthical sensibility) wants you to move foward into this direction. If I want to write anything epical I must add something to Hesiod, Homer, Virgil, Dante, Milton, otherwise I would be just a meaningless repetition.
However, if the needs and style are other, my model can be Sapho and those who followed her with lyrical poetry. I take (at least nothing I read of her suggested otherwise) she was not unto long poems, but ok Sapho is hard.
Shakespeare, who did not moved towards the long epic tradition, wrote dramas. To be notable he certaily had to master Sopholes, Aeschilus and Euripedes (and those after them, or close to him like Marlowe). He didnt, altough the influence, outmasted Dante. Same with Cervantes, who tried to be superior to Lope de Vega and Quevedo (not exactly a chronology here) but he was superior in prose, and there is ambition here.
I understand we may reggard the epic poems - at least some of them - as the top of human literature, I almost said it when I said Dante is perfect. But I refrain myself to think Shakespeare would not be in the top as well. Societies change, technology changes, it is almost like blamming Cezane and Monet for allowed fotography to happen.
I understand the analogy with Ali, but in this case, it is not a competition, everytime Virgil was writing to counter/praise homer he is helping Homer to be memorized.

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If Shelley had wanted to distinguish himself from Dickinson, or if any of the three we are discussing had wanted to distinguish themselves from each other, then they need those championship rounds. They need to challenge a champion for a title. I see inklings of this in Keat's Hyperion, and in Shelley's verse play Prometheus Unbound. Although, as they stand they are incomplete, not quite worthy of their antecedents.

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Ok, I agree, Hyperion is flawed. As dramatic long narrative is failure. But Keats put Milton in the pocket, His Nightingale is the Nightingale of poetry, not Milton and anyone else. Keats is "defeated" by Milton while the length is concerned, but when writing an ode, he wins. Only if you assume, you must write long poems to be good, you will say one "victory" is more relevant than other. Different forms of expression, I can not tell which one is better.
It is like those self-help books. You know why they suck, because while writing this kind of literature, axioms and philosophical small pieces... Cicero, Seneca, etc have done better. I think - it was you, not sure - that said Marcus Aurelius was disapoiting when compared with them. Ok, he had the ambition, measured and lost, but would you say those before him have no validity because the style they choose to express?

JBI- I have thought a great deal about it and our differences pertaining to the epic are manifold. I do not think we have disagreed at so many points even pertaining to Joyce. Since poor advocate that I am, and no specialist in the subject myself, the best I can do is to direct you to a far worthier barrister. John Dryden gives a very spirited defense of the epic tradition in his dedicatory letter to the Aeneid, which I believe will be far superior to anything I could say to sway you. http://www.bartleby.com/13/1002.html If searching therein you do not discover either a new found respect for the man's prose, an appreciation for his skill at analysis, or a liking for his manner of conducting an argument I will be much surprised. He shows here a great vigor, a warmth, intelligence, and character that is as instructive as it is appealing. His charm often lies in little literary outliers like his prefaces and after reading them, I think you can understand why Pope would say, "Such as Chaucer is shall Dryden be." As I say, he makes a very stirring case for the eternal importance of the epic, and it's central role in our society. Give it a look if you are not too busy.

I tried reading it - got about 3 inches down, and got bored.

I have read Dryden's Aeneid in full, but I guess when I did I skipped over the intro. It seemed to be making some points, but really I think he is clouded by the classical obsession of his time period.

I think in our time period, we are more nuanced in our approach, and treat the classics as some of many world literature texts, rather than the models and foundation for current texts, and as such, we lose the epic zealous that seems to be infused in Dryden, and later Pope and the rest of them, not to mention Racine et. al. But the point is, what point would there be writing an epic in today's society? How does the epic function, and to what extent can it function in a society like ours? I doubt it can, I know it surely cannot in Canada, as Canada seems to be a country of mutually accepted differing opinions, where no one can really agree on anything. You would need a strong regional voice, perhaps Quebec could do it, but I doubt they would want to, or need to - prose, especially non-fiction seems to be their medium for sovereigntist sentiment.

Even so though, I can hardly see the point. The major work, or ambitious achievement isn't cause to write a book length epic poem, which, if you write at Virgil pace, would take years to write. The anthology seems to be a stronger form, as it allows a few good lyrics to go noticed, rather than risk a flop of an epic (might I mention the unknown Booniad: http://books.google.ca/books?id=qgoU...esult#PPA15,M1). But beyond that, do people even want an epic - is there a spirit of the age which warrants a culturally accepted epic to raise to Miltonic, or Virgillian status? I doubt it. People want poetry to roughly follow a development started with, in English, Wordsworth - they want lyric poetry - poetry that makes you feel - that makes you react - that makes you decode it, study it, examine it, think about, debate it. That's what the audiences seem to want, not nationalist sentiments, or "[justifications] of the ways of God to men."


Long poems can function though, and now I think back to modernists experiments, like Eliot's late works, and to H. D., a poet somewhat ignored on these boards, and her Homeric reworkings written in the second world war. But those are a different kind of poem, not epics. There are long poems still written, or cycles of sonnets, or cycles of thoughts.

You'd probably make a better case for the verse drama than for the epic, as a verse drama can perhaps still work, but I doubt an epic really will be Virgillian successful, if successful at all, and that is primarily the reason. Poets don't take risks that are likely to cost them years, knowing that the fruit may not be worth it, even if the poem succeeds to an extent. The epic would need to come from an established poet, such as Walcott who has written a couple, and have something that prose novels could not. I doubt you could make a case for a return to Homeric forms, epic similies, evocations, 24 book structure et. al.

The best writers so rarely meet with the best subjects, styles, and themes. Fitzgerald is not as good a writer as Hemingway but he wrote the better book. I am not questioning the potential, or the talent of these writers. I am questioning how far they fulfilled that potential.

Artistically, I believe that the novel, the epic, the feature, the full length play, are the longest forms in their genres and the hardest to do well. Any author of any worth should recognize the potential of these forms, understand that they provide the greatest challenges and scope to show off his ability, and should compose in them.

I understand what you are suggesting... but I have some mixed feelings about it. On the one hand, what you are suggesting is something of an outdated idea... the concept that certain subject matter... certain content is inherently superior to others. In the visual arts we once had a heirarchy of painting. At the highest level were those artists who had mastered the multi-figure paintings of mythological/historical/religious narratives: the histoire. Immediately beneath them were painters of genre scenes with people, and portraitists. Down further were the landscape painters and finally the still life artist. Modernism shattered all these conventions. The Impressionists placed the landscape at the center of their oeuvre, while cubism focused upon the still-life. Of course it might be argued that subject and content are not one and the same... that Monet could say more with a painting of his back yard that most other artists could say with the most grandiose subject. On the other hand... I often find myself acknowledging that as good of an artist as Cezanne is, he can never stand comparison with Michelangelo, Rubens, or Giotto. A bunch of f***ing fruit just isn't going to earn you a place among that echelon.

I somewhat agree that scale or grandeur present a challenge... and that if one wishes to stand along side the greatest one must step up to the challenge. On the other hand, as JCamillo suggests, size "is only a challenge if your desire (Or aesthical sensibility) wants you to move forward into this direction." For better or worse the shift wrought by the Romantics was a move away from larger, heroic external themes (God, fate, heroism, death, etc...) toward an expression of the internal. At its worst this has led us to our current situation in which every poet, writer, painter, etc... defends the most gushing and inane crap as "self expression". A return to an epic art will demand a shift away from such self-indulgence.

Again... I am not one to suggest that Shelley, Keats, etc... are on the same level with Shakespeare, Goethe, Dante, Milton, etc... On the other hand... the are still poets of great merit and achievement.

I'd be willing to challenge that Stevens's In Harmonium stands as somewhat a rival to Milton's Paradise Lost. Certainly it is more authentic.

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Originally Posted by JBI

I'd be willing to challenge that Stevens's In Harmonium stands as somewhat a rival to Milton's Paradise Lost. Certainly it is more authentic.

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That's what the audiences seem to want, not nationalist sentiments, or "[justifications] of the ways of God to men."

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Just to make a comment about Milton’s “justifying the ways of god to men.”

Although this is clearly written by Milton as his intended reason for writing Paradise Lost how much can we be sure that this was his real intention? Of courses this also leads us directly to the ambiguity of authorial intention and all the problems that Barthes highlighted. With this in mind I don’t think that it is so clear cut that we can criticise Paradise Lost for not living-up to this initial “intention”. Of course people are open to if they so wish, as there is no way of knowing either way, but the “intention” certainly allows Milton to comment on god in ways that he couldn’t have done without it. Just a thought.

I imagine Fernando Pessoa, when talking about ambition. He not only created several poems but also different personalities to write those poems. Not only their biographia, but different writing styles. It is a work of large scope, several small poems done by several individuals - The personality Fernando Pessoa wrote a few also. I doubt there is any work with such level of complexity, demanding more from him than would demand from any poet. No one challenged him there, I think no one will ever...
In other hand, Tolkien have a work that is a mature work, demanding a lot of technique and knowledge, a lifetime to create languages and history that would be logical, in a scope that is enough to allow the use of epic (either it is not, another discussion), would that classify as ambitions, as putting himself to the challenge? And yet, nothing of his fictions suggests that he could be superior to any of the small universes that Borges created, in fact, any could see that Borges is considerable superior. The execution is flawed, or in the case of Borges, there is more inside that artist than modesty...

I imagine Fernando Pessoa, when talking about ambition. He not only created several poems but also different personalities to write those poems. Not only their biographia, but different writing styles. It is a work of large scope, several small poems done by several individuals - The personality Fernando Pessoa wrote a few also. I doubt there is any work with such level of complexity, demanding more from him than would demand from any poet. No one challenged him there, I think no one will ever...

Among the Modernists Pessoa is certainly a writer I suspect to be more than worthy of canonical status... and from all I've read on his biography, his oeuvre is only partially published... a large body of manuscripts found in that famous trunk after his death have yet to be deciphered, edited, or published. I imagine Pessoa as directly challenging the Romantic notion of the poet's single unique "voice". In a manner he builds upon Whitman's declaration that he contains multitudes. Of course... his approach is not completely without precedent. In a manner he has merged the advantage of the dramatist or novelist (or even the epic poet) in the invention of multiple characters... each with his or her own unique "voice"... each of whom may or may not represent some aspect of the poet. Which character, for example, if any, may be thought of as the true voice of Shakespeare?