who is the most overrated writer ever?

[wessexgirl]

That's because Blake didn't ramble on about nature.

Which would you rather read?:

http://www.online-literature.com/wordsworth/550/

Or:

http://www.online-literature.com/blake/614/

Poetry should not be long and pretentious and about nature.

I'm not even going to bother to respond to the suggestion of Shakespeare as overrated, it's such a ridiculous notion. There's a vast difference between not liking someone's work personally, and stating that they are overrated, and I think some posters are confusing the two things.

I would like to know what makes you think Kelby that poetry shouldn't be about nature? It can be about whatever the poet wants it to be about. Just because it doesn't appeal to you doesn't make it lesser poetry. And just to lay my cards firmly on the table, both Shakespeare and Wordsworth rightly deserve their places in the canon, whether they appeal to some readers or not, their work is not overrated, and their reputations are richly deserved, as attested by their contemporaries, scholars, critics, academics, and yes readers, over the centuries.

[stlukesguild]

Poetry should not be long and pretentious and about nature.

Damn, not be long, there goes Dante, Milton, Shakespeare and every other epic ever written, bummer!

Indeed. That also pretty much eliminates a majority of the Japanese and Chinese poetry that I've read. Hmmm... is there some rule book somewhere that I don't know about that spells out just what subject matter is allowable for poetry? It sounds like the old 19th century "heirarchy of art" in which subject matter was ranked for the convenience of painters: at the top of the heap we had the historical, mythological, and religious narratives followed closely behind by portraiture (and the "importance" of the sitter was part of the measure of the "importance" of the portrait)... then came genre scenes, followed by landscapes and still life. Poor ol' Turner and Cezanne... they never had a chance.

[JuniperWoolf]

Poetry should not be long and pretentious and about nature.

That's the silliest thing I've read so far on these forums.

[JBI]

That's because Blake didn't ramble on about nature.

Which would you rather read?:

http://www.online-literature.com/wordsworth/550/

Or:

http://www.online-literature.com/blake/614/

Poetry should not be long and pretentious and about nature.

No, it is because Blake a) is hardly read, except for some early lyrics, and b), is incredibly misunderstood, even within those early lyrics. There are far easier poems to read than Blake's prophetic works. Blake is one of the most difficult poets I've encountered, and is very, very difficult to get into, because everything is kind of cryptic.

People think, when they read The Tyger, for instance, that they are reading a simple kids poem - in truth, most people get it the first time as Children, but I am yet to find a person that age who really knows what, "When the heavens threw down their spears / and watered heaven with their tears" means. In truth, most adult readers wouldn't be able to pick up the reference easily (Isaiah mixed with Milton).


Poetry without nature is almost impossible. Perhaps one can achieve the sense of nature almost joked upon by Stevens:

And have been cold a long time
To behold the junipers shagged with ice,
The spruces rough in the distant glitter

Of the January sun; and not to think
Of any misery in the sound of the wind,
In the sound of a few leaves,

Which is the sound of the land
Full of the same wind
That is blowing in the same bare place

But one realizes, quite early, that to not hear the subjectivity of the natural world is to be like the snow man - dead and frozen, part of Stevens' irony.

[stlukesguild]

I didn't want to get into the Blake discussion myself... being an admitted fanatic... but yes, outside of his shorter lyric poetry Blake is an extremely difficult poet and I would agree a seldom read poet. And certainly his short lyrics can be as knotty as anything.

[Madame X]

Poetry should not be long and pretentious and about nature.

That would be Poe’s entire Poetic Principle – in 10 words or less!

[stlukesguild]

Unfortunately, Poe was a rather mediocre poets. No Wordsworth... and certainly no Blake.

[JBI]

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.

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.

[Jozanny]

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.

[JBI]

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.

[Dark Lady]

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.

[Jozanny]

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.

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.

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.

[LitNetIsGreat]

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.

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:

Knowing my heart’s best treasure was no more;
That neither present time, nor years unborn
Could to my sight that heavenly face restore.

It’s very touching, especially having two daughters myself.

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.

[kelby_lake]

That's because Blake didn't ramble on about nature.

Which would you rather read?:

http://www.online-literature.com/wordsworth/550/

Or:

http://www.online-literature.com/blake/614/

Poetry should not be long and pretentious and about nature.

Obviously the 'and' escaped you.

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.

[PeterL]

Unfortunately, Poe was a rather mediocre poets. No Wordsworth... and certainly no Blake.

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".