Unfortunately, Poe was a rather mediocre poets. No Wordsworth... and certainly no Blake.
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Unfortunately, Poe was a rather mediocre poets. No Wordsworth... and certainly no Blake.
Yeah, but Poe had something both of these Geniuses did not - something, to many readers worth far more than innovation or eccentricity - an American stamp on his forehead. I highly doubt, had he been born in England, that Poe would have amounted to much beyond a shrug.Quote:
Originally Posted by stlukesguild
So yeah, to throw another one in the pot, I'd put him as one of the most overrated writers.
I think that's one of the problems that Harold Bloom has struggled with in his life. His knowledge of Poe's inferiority, yet his loyalty to the American Imagination. He then came up with a bogus excuse to justify Poe as "thinking up people's nightmares" which is total idiocy, when one thinks of it, rather than coming up with a real answer; America, at that point, had very few good poets, (I like to think of Longfellow as a good poet, though he wrote his fair share of shlack) and was trying to establish itself. Along comes Poe, with a haunted, sort of Gothic tinge, that seems cool, and bam! sensationalism, that lasts to this day. He's like Twilight and The Da Vinci Code wrapped into one bag. Certainly, he was about as creative as they at any rate, but I guess the competition at the time wasn't much, and his weird sense of perverse adolescent madness (perpetuated by his incestuous marriage to his Lolita of a first cousin) only made him seem more authentic. He's like Baudelaire, but without the Baudelaire, Byron without the wit - but what can compete with an American stamp? Well, the power of the American brand has been proven time and time again - I guess that is just an early example of it, in its infant stages.
Yes, I know, I may seem biased, but Poe seems the poet people who don't like good poets love (in the sense that Britney Spears is the singer people who don't like good singers like). Perhaps he deserves a little more credit, and would be best compared to Puccini... yeah, I like that... in terms of style, I see a lot between Poe and Puccini's operas... accept for one thing really... Puccini had music, which was somewhat pleasant, whereas Poe was only able to capture the mediocrity of the unnatural words and ridiculous plots.
I don't think he is that bad as a fiction writer JBI. What he lacks in depth he makes up for in atmosphere, and Poe was the father of film noir, in a sense. He provided the roots for the hard-boiled American detective character and plots. I am no advocate for his poetry, but he did manage to make his mark as an American author.
Exactly my point. Look how you've constructed Poe, as this original American innovator, and pioneer of the American short story. It becomes problematic though, when you try to separate the artificially constructed tradition from the author - the dancer from the dance. Relevance to a tradition perhaps isn't everything, and if it is, what if we start to unravel the notion of a tradition - what happens then? It would seem, that these figures who are only relevant, I would argue, because of their associations with the tradition begin to become re-evaluated.Quote:
Originally Posted by Jozanny
I would like to try to back up the notion that Wordsworth is overrated but I do think it's a difficult thing to do since any of his poetry I may quote may be enjoyed by other people. How do you stop this sort of thread spiralling into 'this is good', 'no it's not'?
Since Blake has been brought up I thought maybe I'd compare the two. It is difficult as they are so different. I also have the problem that whilst I have Blake's Complete Poems I am limited with Wordsworth to what I have in an anthology. Perhaps the sections I'll choose will be a bit arbitrary but then I do sort of think I could choose almost any section from any of their poems and feel the same.
This is from Wordsworth's 'Surprised by Joy':
"Surprised by joy--impatient as the Wind
I turned to share the transport--Oh! with whom
But Thee, deep buried in the silent tomb,
That spot which no vicissitude can find?"
Now I fail to see much in this (and I suppose perhaps it is a failing on my part). I feel like if I had handed this in during my Creative Writing classes at uni nobody would have batted an eyelid. However, if I had handed in something like this (from Blake's 'America: A Prophecy'), I think it would have had a lot of attention:
"Silent and despairing love, and strong as jealousy,
The hairy shoulders rend the links, free are the wrists of fire;
Round the terrific loins he seized the panting struggling womb.
It joyed. She put aside her clouds and smiled her first-born smile,
As when a black cloud shows its lightnings to the silent deep."
I know that these are very different poems in form and subject and everything but like I said I just feel like I could take almost any poem of Wordsworth's and almost any poem of Blake's and I would not see the merit in Wordsworth's whereas I would in Blake's.
Wordsworth leaves me cold. There are other poets who do this to me too but I can still recognise certain aspects of their poetry that make me understand why other people hold them so highly. I don't have this with Wordsworth. As has been said before in this thread; Blake is an extremely difficult poet. But even when I can't understand what he's saying or I don't get the allusion (one of the reasons I am going to read the bible is so I will get the biblical allusions in writers like Blake) I can appreciate the skill and beauty of his writing.
You lose me here a little, although you seem hostile to what I'd call quality hack writers, of whom I'd include Dumas, Wilkie Collins, Gissing, and possibly Poe, though I am not sure Poe *pioneers* short fiction so much as American genre, whether or not we include those genres to be American Gothic, Mystery, Horror, pick your tag.Quote:
Originally Posted by JBI
I am more forgiving of certain genre formulas than others, certainly, as Stephen King makes me puke, but I am easier on detail-oriented 19th century paint by numbers fiction writers, and even 20th century historical novelists like Mitchner, John Jakes, or James Clavell. To me, Shogun was decent entertainment when I was a teenager. I learned something about the classical Japanese caste system, and a samurai was rather the Asian version of an Arthurian knight. In the same vein, Poe is something of a morbid sensualist. When I am in the mood, I enjoy him as a kind of lighter Maupassant, an American Maupassant without the French Maupassant cynicism. If you don't like the tropes inherent in these types of tales, without them, would someone like Borges have evolved?
I have yet to penetrate Borges, but I know enough about his oeuvre to know he took the cheap tricks from said genres and pushed their boundary lines in such a way that appreciative readers become fascinated. Lessing does the same with science fiction. There is bad trash and better trash, and I am fine with the latter when I don't want to work too hard. American noir, at its best, is as equally worthy of the esteem granted to fictional realism, besides. The Maltese Falcon has something to teach its readers, JBI. The hero is a brutalist, but he honors a peculiar kind of code: you get justice for your partner, even at the cost of a great sex life, or chasing fantasical totems, and if part of this legacy owes a debt to Poe, far be it for me to ridicule good material simply for being encased in its own norms.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Dark Lady
Hmm, it reads as quite a touching piece to me, a father’s grief at the loss of a daughter. Full poem here:
http://www.portablepoetry.com/poems/...d_by_joy_.html
Sonnets need to be read as a whole really to get their full impact. I like the concluding lines of the poem especially:
It’s very touching, especially having two daughters myself.Quote:
Knowing my heart’s best treasure was no more;
That neither present time, nor years unborn
Could to my sight that heavenly face restore.
One interesting angle which one of my tutor’s brought up was that Wordsworth tends to divides the sexes. Of course it is an acknowledged sweeping statement but there may be a case to be made out of it, though it’s not my cup of tea to really do so. While we are making sweeping statements of the sexes a lot of women seem to be attracted to the work of Blake too. I don’t know, I just think a lot of the time people tend to reduce Wordsworth as “a nature poet” or someone who only writes about trees and bridges etc (as we have seen) and that sort of approach doesn’t do him justice as I hope I illustrated in one of my last posts.
Of course people have different tastes and that is fine but to say Wordsworth is overrated doesn't ring true to me at all.
Obviously the 'and' escaped you.Quote:
Originally Posted by kelby_lake
Of course some good poetry is long- narrative poetry thrives on it- but it shouldn't be a divide of intellects.
There well might be some meaning behind the tree poem, but who would ever pick up on that unless you pored over it? We should study poems to gain a deeper or more accurate understanding, not to desperately search for an understanding.
Nature poetry is, or can be, the height of pretentiousness. Now, nature can feature in poetry (Neutral Tones is a good example) but if all you're saying is 'Isn't nature lovely?', what's the point? Are we all supposed to bow down and praise the poet on their wonderful observations of what art can do so much better?
I have not said anywhere that Wordsworth is terrible, or that the fact I don't think much of his poetry equates as the definitive judgement on its merit.
Overrate means: to rate or appraise too highly; overestimate.
In secondary school everyone thought that Wordsworth was untouchably great, one of those poets that you just assume are good. It appears to be the belief of a lot of people. And I didn't wake up one morning to find that his poetry was terrible; I read other poets and as I became more experienced, I realised that he was not as good as Shakespeare (which is what he was essentially equated to) and that there were many poets we had never really learnt that were far better. Blake's poetry is passionate and lyrical- instantly attractive. Wordsworth's doesn't have the same impact.
Ask a group of non-poetry intellectuals which they prefer and I bet the majority would choose Blake over Wordsworth.
It is true that Poe was not a Wordsworth, and he certainly was not a Blake. Although Poe was into writing poetry when he was young, his later and better known poetry was mostly in a humorous vein that accorded well with the best of his prose. But Poe was not much of a poet, and, if he were here to be questioned, then he would admit that his satirical, ironic, and horrific prose were his best work. To the best of my knowledge, neither Wordsworth nor Blake Wrote a story that could compare with even "The Cask of Amontillado".Quote:
Originally Posted by stlukesguild
This is a deeply flawed misreading of Wordsworth. Can I just ask how much of Wordsworth you have read Kelby? There's a heck of a lot more to Wordsworth's poetry than that. Just out of interest, you have mentioned reading him at Secondary School. Are you still a school student? If so, I can safely say that you will not have read a huge amount of Wordsworth's poetry for the syllabus, (I work in a Secondary School), and if you had studied him in greater depth, (as I did for my degree), you would know that he's more than that, and is universally acclaimed to be a very important poet. To dismiss him as you have with that trite statement smacks of desperation. Okay, you don't like him, everyone is entitled to their likes and dislikes, but that is an overly simplistic, and just plain wrong summing up of an extremely well-regarded pioneer of poetry.Quote:
Originally Posted by kelby_lake
I also don't understand your last statement. Why would a group of "non-poetry intellectuals" choose Blake over Wordsworth? Do you mean people who don't read poetry? Are you saying that as they're intellectuals, they deal in reason and not feelings, so would choose Blake, who is the antithesis to reason, whose works sing out with his own unique, personal spirituality, because Wordsworth is too wrapped up in emotion? You may prefer Blake to Wordsworth, but they are both part of the Romantic Movement, which was about feelings and emotions over reason and logic. Where's your proof of such a statement? And do you really think that Art can "do Nature" better than Nature?
Yes I am sure that there is "some meaning behind the tree poem" in fact I am absolutely sure there is and I gave my quick reading of it earlier. And I do say quick, it was not "poured over" but was instantaneously obvious to me, maybe that is because I don't just dismiss Wordsworth as someone who writes long poems about trees? This is where you are going wrong with Wordsworth, you are seemingly reducing him to someone who says "oh look at that nice tree" and in doing so you are missing the point with Wordsworth completely. You are not alone in doing this. This is fine, it doesn't really matter either way, but to say that he is overrated if you are not going to properly read him seems a little pointless to me.Quote:
Originally Posted by kelby_lake
Peter L
That's because they were poets.Quote:
To the best of my knowledge, neither Wordsworth nor Blake Wrote a story that could compare with even "The Cask of Amontillado".
That was my point.Quote:
Originally Posted by Neely
I also don't understand your last statement. Why would a group of "non-poetry intellectuals" choose Blake over Wordsworth? Do you mean people who don't read poetry? Are you saying that as they're intellectuals, they deal in reason and not feelings, so would choose Blake, who is the antithesis to reason, whose works sing out with his own unique, personal spirituality, because Wordsworth is too wrapped up in emotion?
Yes... I'm having difficulty getting what you are at here myself. "Non-poetry intellectuals?" So you are assuming that those who are intelligent but do not read poetry would prefer Blake. I'm not certain that says much in favor of Blake... and I am an admitted Blake fanatic myself. Perhaps presented with a seemingly simple poem like The Tyger you may be right... but how many would find Wordsworth's "Strange Fits of Passion I have Known" or "She Dwealt Among the Untrodden Ways" or "I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud" or "Intimations of Immortality" far more pleasurable than Blake's Milton, or Jerusalem? I am not asking which is better as I clearly prefer Blake... but I think you grossly underestimate Wordsworth... and I think you have thrown out some rather absurd reasons for doing so when you suggest that long poems about nature are inherently bad. Where is the dividing line between a long poem and a short poem... Is there a specific number of lines after which the quality inherently deteriorates? And nature as an inappropriate subject matter? Who decides what subject matter is appropriate? Do we honestly believe that any subject matter cannot result in great art... or schlock? Yeats suggests that all art may be reduced to a contemplation of sex and the dead... perhaps he is right: creation and destruction, life and death, love and hate, sex and violence... but even so it must be recognized that Wordsworth is not lacking even under such criticism. There is certainly more than a little meditation upon mortality within his poetry.
I agree with Jozie with regard to Poe. As a poet he was mediocre at best... and often quite bad. As a short story writer...? He had his moments. I agree that he developed a certain unique, Gothic atmosphere which is often the strongest element of his strongest tales. It is for this reason that he had such an impact upon Baudelaire, Verlaine, Rimbaud, Gautier and others... as well as upon any number of influential visual artists. He is certainly not Baudelaire... but neither was Gautier for that matter. While Poe's nationality certainly assured him a place within literature survey's in the United States, I think you grossly overstate the worth of his nationality (another bit of those Canadian anti-American reflexes at work?:D). The reality is that it was far more likely the appreciation of the French writers and authors which sealed Poe's reputation early on.
By the way... to return to Wordsworth... it is somewhat amazing that Wordsworth is dismissed as such an overrated poet with people continually pointing out that he had so many mediocre and poor poems... and yet what of Coleridge? His entire reputation virtually rests upon three (unquestionably great) poems.