Who here likes Swinburne?

[JBI]

Canadian is very removed, in terms of poetics, from America - the Vedas, Chinese Classics, and French classics are equally as important to the tradition as Shakespeare, Milton, and the rest. The US too has connections with its own tradition, yet at the same time, has minority traditions within that, which are as important.

I personally hold no real attachment to England. The only reason I know so much about English literature, is because it is, at the moment the tradition I find most accessible, and therefore the one I have jumped the most into. But I wouldn't, for a minute, believe I belong to said tradition - I am not European, and I am not British, therefore, I find it safe to say, I should try and read a) the books close to my tradition, namely Canadian works, and b) the books the world deems the best, in any tradition. Of course, a part of me is rooted in English writing, as I am an English speaker, and ultimately, an English writer of essays, but to say, for instance, Swinburne is as essential reading to me as Mallarme or Emile Neligan is a bit ridiculous.

On that topic - Luke, to an extent, would seem to agree with me, though he seems to hold closer to the canon than I do. In truth, Swinburne rarely seems to come up anywhere in discourse, and this is one of the few times I have actually seen his name pop up on this forum.

The position, ultimately, according to my reading, Swinburne plays, is one that appeals to that old style of platonic Victorian Oxbridge student that pervaded the English academe until the Great Wars. As such, he seems to fit into that grove, of clever, sort of classical literary Onanist, who the criticism of, strangely enough, F. R. Leavis and I. A. Richards essentially put to death, with the rise of a more interesting form of reading, built around reading for a purpose, rather than for cheap rhyming gimmicks, and clever tropes.

I do acknowledge there is something there, but, I think I can say with confidence, what is there hasn't aged well, and ultimately, I would argue, isn't that relevant to many people anymore. That being said, I have read him, as have others, but ultimately, I wouldn't rush back to him, the way I would Yeats or someone. I just can't help but feel he is no longer very relevant - I good metrist, but perhaps lacking in things other than sound - diction, superb, metre, almost unmatched, content, irrelevant - that's how I see him. I welcome everyone to enjoy him, but I really cannot understand much of an argument pertaining to him being a lasting figure, or one that is really necessary.

[NikolaiI]

It isn't relative to you. I admit that. It is very relative to me. As to the rest I have no information, and I do not know that you have any more. I don't think it's possible to know exactly that. But I've wasted too many words on it as it is. It's completely irrelevant. The purpose of this thread is to discuss Swinburne, so I will go straight back to that.


In the following stanza, from "An Interlude," expresses the world in unique, beautiful way, and expresses a deep and spiritual poetic feeling. It is mystical but simple, and thus its beauty. It expresses itself with beauty upon beauty, but then displays a sort of arrogant absurdity, in haughtiness, at the difference of its divine expression and the minds and understanding of the number of people who willl get a glimpse of its words.

Your feet in the full-grown grasses
Moved soft as a weak wind blows;
You passed me as April passes,
With face made out of a rose.

What have you gone to get here, JBI? I do not know and I wouldn't ask. Maybe you're a Vietnam vet. Maybe you're a veterinarian. Maybe you're an airline pilot. Maybe you are intelligent. If you are you should realize Swinburne wasn't writing to be considered a figure, he was writing a deeply personal love, in many of his poems. Isn't wasn't for you, or for me, or for anybody, it was just for itself. You say they lack content but I say they are perfect stories, nay worlds, universes, though a bit small of ones. They were just somebody writing a poem. I do not consider Swinburne for a figure, or hero, I just concern him as a poet. I do not say yes or no to if he his a figure, it is completely irrelevent to me. Why would I care what anyone teaches?

[JBI]

I'll just take a quick jump -

In the following stanza, from "An Interlude," expresses the world in unique, beautiful way, and expresses a deep and spiritual poetic feeling. It is mystical but simple, and thus its beauty. It expresses itself with beauty upon beauty, but then displays a sort of arrogant absurdity, in haughtiness, at the difference of its divine expression and the minds and understanding of the number of people who willl get a glimpse of its words.

Could you repeat that in English please? That doesn't seem to mean anything to me, in terms of criticism of the actual poem; expressing words in a unique beautiful way doesn't say much to me, no offense, and hasn't held any ground in discourse since the beginning of the 20th century, ironically.

The gimmick is the 4 stress pattern, the most natural in English prosody, and arguably the most potent in terms of argument, of all metrical styles (see, for instance, the last section of Yeats' Under Ben Bulben, Blake's Tyger, Jonson's Song to Celia, etc.) combined with a variant, rather loose on an alliterative metre, though this time, not so central, though perhaps gesturing back to Angolo-saxon times (the 4 measured metre surely does). The 8 7 8 7 syllable lines then, sort of reawaken a call and answer feel, similar to the 11, 10 pattern used by Kippling in his poem If. In that sense then, the poem works as a pair - statement, similie, then statement, metaphor. But beyond that, what does the verse actually say?

Your feet in the full-grown grasses
Moved soft as a weak wind blows;
You passed me as April passes,
With face made out of a rose.

Well, the most crucial part of the stanza is in the polyptotonic third line, but ultimately, the poems meaning rests in only two lines, "your feet in the full grown grasses" and then "...passed me as April passes." in other words, the verse merely means, quickly, as if running through high grass, your pretty rose face passed me, like April, before withering away. It isn't at all profound or insightful, certainly it has a decent ring to it, and the aliterative ws in the second line making a nice breeze effect, highlighting the passing of the syllables like the passing of the subject through the grass, but beyond that, it doesn't seem to say much. It's not a bad verse, but it isn't one that I feel completely moved by, though it is one that perhaps commits well to memory, which says something.

Of course, I can't help but feel though, that the last two feet of the stanza are lacking though - "out of a rose" has too loose a substitution, in terms of sound for me. Of clearly isn't a stressed syllable, so it kind of flops a bit, but perhaps that can be ignored.


As for Swinburne's intention - that means nothing -= I don't care how romantic Swinburne was, I really don't see how that is relevant.

As for me not being a Nam vet, or whatever, quite frankly that is just a cheap shot. I'm a reader of poetry, I know what I am talking about much of the time. I think my criticism is just as valid as yours (I will not be so bold as to boast more valid), and quite frankly, I think I have a pretty damn good understanding of verse, especially English verse. Whether I have penned verses or not, flown plains, slaughtered Vietnamese people. Swinburne, you interpret as some romantic figure. I interpret him as some Onanist British Egotist, as much of the intelligent gentry were at the time. You are the one making the assumption that he somehow was sincere - I'm of the mind that he most certainly was not, as was Oscar Wilde, who, if I recall, reffered to him as someone obsessed with convincing the world that he was a homosexual and a bestializer, despite being neither of the two.


That being said, the whole of The Interlude to me doesn't seem like that fantastic a poem - it has great moments, but also quite bad ones.

[NikolaiI]

JBI, sorry I am not going to read all your post. I don't know why you would write so much about it. You are analyzing poetry too much. Poetry is about feeling. I mean thank you, and I don't mean to be rude. But that's not really some interested in that much.

That's why I said it's beautiful and secretive, you don't understand its meaning, nor will I tell it to you. It's divinely beautiful but in a subtle way that you don't see. It's combining things you don't recognize because it's speaking the voice of poetry, subtle feeling.

You are going in with the idea, the aim, to dismantle, and prove useless, this man's poetry. To prove he writes doggerels. Therefore it isn't accessible to you. It's beautiful, sublimely so, but it isn't meant to be compared and judged and challenged against other poetry. It's a simple and private, personal communication, between the poet and the reader.

Poetry is always subjective. If I have a headache, then I am not going to enjoy poetry that much, and yet if I am feeling good, peaceful, if I am in love, or if I am feeling mystical, then I might like to read some poetry. And yet there is a definite communication going on; a communication which isn't about meter and measurement. Yes there's meter and it follows it, but the rest is about poetry. I am not saying you need to like it, in fact that's kind of opposite my point; and I don't mean to be rude, but please understand why I am not interested in reading your post.

I will make a defense of it, but will not put more of my effort into it because a; it isn't helpful to me or you and b; it doesn't need defending.

And...*sigh*

As for me not being a Nam vet, or whatever, quite frankly that is just a cheap shot.

No, it is not, I do not make shots of any kind. You misunderstood my meaning completely, but by the way, that is not a moral judgement.
It's been a very long time since I've gotten into a personal argument and it is not something I do. I'm sorry I miscommunicated and you understood something which was not intended as a shot in the least to be a shot, and you thought I did want to be in a personal argument. I'm a dignified person and I do not do that. I hope you will have a good day and not have hard feelings. I am out.

I like you fine and have no reason to dislike you, but if you dislike me, please ignore me and I will do the same. I am not interested in anything else. I don't mind personal discussion even with someone who has different beliefs than me - although politically I am sure we are more similar - but I have no reason to desire to insult anyone, at all, and no desire to be in a personal disagreement.

What I said was "What have you gone to get here, JBI? I do not know and I wouldn't ask. Maybe you're a Vietnam vet. Maybe you're a veterinarian. Maybe you're an airline pilot. Maybe you are intelligent."

I said those things to illustrate I don't know what you have gone through in your life. I don't know anything about it. I went on to say

"If you are you should realize Swinburne wasn't writing to be considered a figure, he was writing a deeply personal love, in many of his poems. Isn't wasn't for you, or for me, or for anybody, it was just for itself."

I'm sorry if this seem condescending, I have no reason to condescend while speaking to you and I am convinced that even if I felt anything related to that, which I do not, conedescension would still be a contemptible characteristic.

[JBI]

If you cannot tell me anything about the poem, other than it is sublimely beautiful, than it is you, rather than me that is misreading. Saying something is beautiful is meaningless. Unless you can show something, I hold that my opinion is by far the stronger. There are people on this forum, for instance, who consider "I liked it very much" to be criticism - it isn't, and it isn't discussion either. Like you said, we are discussing Swinburne's work - I think I've done that, have you?

All I get from you are broad statements of his genius, but nothing to really prove it, or show it - this isn't 1890, you're going to have to do a little better than saying it is secretive, religious, majestic, or any other third-age pseudo-Indic pseudo-philosophical adjectives you can come up with.

Swinburne is not in a secret sexual relationship with someone - poetry is public, and the poet, ultimately, ends where the reader begins - to say he isn't to be subjected to criticism is the most ridiculous thing I have ever heard - if you want such a relationship, I think you'll find more on The Personal Poetry section of this website - as it is, Swinburne has been dead for 100 years, and his style was somewhat Archaic when it was introduced by him some 140 odd years ago. There is no personal relationship - he was writing for a public, as are most poets, unless they are writing specifically for one person, or a group of people, in which case, a) the poetry is rarely good, and b) the poetry is rarely relevant except to those addressed. Swinburne however, did nothing of that sort - he put his books out publically, and tried to attract critical attention, like almost every poet in this world.

Poetry may be subjective, but, quite simply, some people are good at reading it, and understanding currents, and some are not. There is a technical vocabulary, for instance (and was one in Swinburne's day too) and there are certain exposures which help people make more educated value judgments, not to mention one wouldn't expect some eight year old to have much to say on Ezra Pound, in terms of knowledgeable critical thought.

[NikolaiI]

.....

[JBI]

Sorry Nikolai, I didn't realize you edited in a deceleration of not wanting to continue this argument after I posted my response - my mistake - I hold nothing against you, or anybody, but, I figured someone perhaps may find the discussion somewhat stimulating.

Please, there is no need to victimize yourself, if you notice, I posted before you, and then you questioned my reading knowledge, than my taste and understanding of poetry, and then my analytical skills so yes, for all my self-superior tone (and I admit, I am amongst the most cocksure posters on this site) I hardly feel like I was out of place. If anything, I was directly reacting to the topic of the thread, and as of yet, I think I'm the only person on the thread to have actually approached, critically that is, a piece of Swinburne's verse, somewhat ironically mind you, since I do not particularly care for him (yes, that is an understatement).

So please, call me immature, or antagonistic, or whatever other adjectives you can muster in any language I can understand - that won't change the facts. I am arrogant, I am condescending, ironic, and often times rude, but that isn't the point - Swinburne's verse is, and as a reader, despite all my evident flaws, I still think I am pretty damn good at reading verse.

[NikolaiI]

.....

[mayneverhave]

I'll borrow from Bertrand Russell's chapter on Rousseau in dealing with irrational arguments:

...there are two objections to the practice of basing beliefs as to objective fact upon the emotions of the heart. One is that there is no reason whatever to suppose that such beliefs will be true; the other is, that the resulting beliefs will be private, since the heart says different things to different people...But even if the heart said the same thing to all men, that could afford no evidence for the existence of anything outside our own emotions.
For my part, I prefer the ontological argument, the cosmological argument, and the rest of the old stock-in-trade, to the sentimental illogicality that has sprung from Rousseau. The old arguments at least were honest: if valid, they proved their point; if invalid, it was open to any critic to prove them so. But the new theology of the heart dispenses with argument; it cannot be refuted, because it does not profess to prove its points. At bottom, the only reason offered for its acceptance is that it allows us to indulge in pleasant dreams. This is an unworthy reason, and if I had to choose between Thomas Aquinas and Rousseau, I should unhesitatingly choose the Saint.

These sentiments are with regards to proofs of God's existence, but they equally apply to poetic or artistic judgments. Analyzing, critiquing, pulling apart poetry, and then illustrating the points of the poem and how the poem achieves those points - that is what makes a convincing argument, and not the reliance on total subjectivity as a fall back.

And as for validity of opinion. Just as when I am ill I trust a medical doctor over a mystical healer (or say, Chris de Burgh, singer of Lady in Red, who is now apparently a miracle healer), I find arguments from a person well trained in literary analysis over someone who is occasionally moved from time to time.

Poetry is subjective, yes. There is ambiguity in poetry - lines often have layers and depths of meaning so that one simple analysis does not capture the whole of the poem - but that is not to say the critic should just give up. We can point out these ambiguities, explore the various meanings of the ambiguities, and how they function in the poem.

[NikolaiI]

.....

http://webapp1.dlib.indiana.edu/swin...tle&startDoc=1

[Quark]

I like Swinburne's earlier poems, but the parodies and social commentary he wrote later in his career seem a little flat. His first efforts, though, captured the essence of courtly love poetry and combined it with a uniquely Victorian sense of loss, return, and progress. In poems like "Anactoria" and "The Triumph of Time" he plays the poet-lover well, and shows both love in triumph and love in doubt rather convincingly. I like how Swinburne dramatizes all the checks and frustrations of love unfulfilled in "The Triumph of Time." The speaker reaching out tentatively, and recoiling timidly. The poet's vision becoming more outward before relapsing in self-absorption. Ultimately, it's a poem about finding solace--whether it be through nature, art, or memory--but Swinburne complicates the matter by including the speaker's self-interrogation in the middle of the poem: "Would I have you change now, change at a blow, Startled and stricken, awake and aware?" The speaker answers no, but not for sentimentalism's sake. Usually when someone says they wouldn't change anything about someone, they're trying to prove how perfect that person is, but here it isn't quite so simple. In this instance, the speaker's "no" is part of his timidity. This is someone who fear engagement and participation with the world. The prospect of his love being returned actually scares the speaker somewhat and he's forced to retreat back into himself. The poem is an enjoyable love poem, but it's also a portrait of this character and his attempt to find "a way for the failing feet" which makes it much more interesting. I like Sappho in "Anactoria" for similar reasons--although the characters are so different.

I also think there's some complexity in the way Swinburne approached the question of permanence and change. The poet-lover frequently longs for a timeless connection with the beloved, but Swinburne doesn't appear to be entirely comfortable with the idea of a static, unchanging universe. Like Tennyson, who had his hero Arthur die "lest one good custom should corrupt the world," Swinburne welcomes a certain amount of cleansing change. His two Proserpine poems ("Hymn to Proserpine and "Proserpine's Garden") both accept the decline of one life or belief to make room for another. Yet this conflicts sharply with the responsibilities of the courtly love poet who is supposed to ask for one, long life with the beloved. I think this creates an interesting tension between these poems and those spoken by the mourning lovers. "Prosperine's Garden" is also just a beautiful poem--the first stanza particularly:

Here, where the world is quiet;
Here, where all trouble seems
Dead winds' and spent waves' riot
In doubtful dreams of dreams;
I watch the green field growing
For reaping folk and sowing,
For harvest-time and mowing,
A sleepy world of streams.

Lines two, three, and four are great. They're vivid, yet mysterious at the same time. The forth line, for example, talks about the "doubtful dream of dreams." "Doubtful" indicates in what sense we're supposed to take the "dreams of dreams"--that is, they're insubstantial--but what are "dreams of dreams?" Would it be a double-dream? Even though the "doubtful" partially explains it, the phrase remains somewhat unclear. The same could go of the third line "Dead winds' and spent waves' riot." A vivid image, but how are we supposed to take the word "riot?" The possessives "winds'" and "waves'" make it read like a noun, but when you read it together with the forth line it becomes a little uncertain: "riot/ In doubtful dreams of dreams." With the forth line, it reads like a verb. The word is lost in a syntactic no-man's land, and while being descriptive and evocative, it reads ambiguously. The whole poem has clever moments like that, and it's one of the highlights of Swinburne's work.

I don't know if I like all the biting and scratching, though. Really, how can we talk about Swinburne and not mention "flower-sweet fingers, good to bruise or bite" and "pain made perfect in thy lips/ for my sake when I hurt thee?" That sounds a little too kinky--even for me.

Now another post:

this isn't 1890

No, it isn't 1890, but nor is it 1930. Insisting on strict rhetorical analysis and drawing out from a poem a particular message seems just as outdated as anything else. Literary theory has advanced by long strides since I.A. Richards and Leavis. Perhaps the most successful line of criticism since those days is that which studies discourse, ideology, and power. A major eighteenth-century critic wrote in his book Imagining the Penitentiary (1989) that it "sets out from Foucault," but the tag could be applied to so much of the criticism that came out of 80's and 90's. Yet I doubt many were saying that their approach sets out from William Empson or T.S. Eliot. Even more recently, there has been a string of books published with titles like After Theory or Beyond Theory which encourage critics to move toward a more primal engagement with texts. In The Uses of Literature (I believe it came out in '07), Rita Felski makes just this argument, and lays out the groundwork for an academic discussion of responses like shock, the sublime, and, yes, even the beautiful. At this point, the idea that a text is the sum of its "content" and its rhetorical moves might be looked back at as naive. Analysis based on that premise still lives today as explication or "close reading," but it's not exactly the most scholarly way of looking at a poem.

That isn't to say that it's wrong, or that the "scholarly" way is always the right way. If you don't like Swinburne because you find it without "content" and metrically inferior to Pound or Eliot that's fine. But I wouldn't upbraid someone else for having an opinion out of favor with academia. After all, you might find yourself stung by that very same attack.

[NikolaiI]

"Hymn to Proserpine"

I have lived long enough, having seen one thing, that love hath an end;
Goddess and maiden and queen, be near me now and befriend.
Thou art more than the day or the morrow, the seasons that laugh or that weep;
For these give joy and sorrow; but thou, Proserpina, sleep.
Sweet is the treading of wine, and sweet the feet of the dove; 5
But a goodlier gift is thine than foam of the grapes or love.
Yea, is not even Apollo, with hair and harpstring of gold,
A bitter God to follow, a beautiful God to behold?
I am sick of singing: the bays burn deep and chafe: I am fain
To rest a little from praise and grievous pleasure and pain. 10
For the Gods we know not of, who give us our daily breath,
We know they are cruel as love or life, and lovely as death.

pg. 68

O Gods dethroned and deceased, cast forth, wiped out in a day!
From your wrath is the world released, redeemed from your chains, men say.
New Gods are crowned in the city; their flowers have broken your rods; 15
They are merciful, clothed with pity, the young compassionate Gods.
But for me their new device is barren, the days are bare;
Things long past over suffice, and men forgotten that were.
Time and the Gods are at strife; ye dwell in the midst thereof,
Draining a little life from the barren breasts of love. 20
I say to you, cease, take rest; yea, I say to you all, be at peace,
Till the bitter milk of her breast and the barren bosom shall cease.
Wilt thou yet take all, Galilean? but these thou shalt not take,
The laurel, the palms and the pæan, the breasts of the nymphs in the brake;
Breasts more soft than a dove's, that tremble with tenderer breath; 25
And all the wings of the Loves, and all the joy before death;
All the feet of the hours that sound as a single lyre,
Dropped and deep in the flowers, with strings that flicker like fire.
More than these wilt thou give, things fairer than all these things?
Nay, for a little we live, and life hath mutable wings. 30

pg. 69

A little while and we die; shall life not thrive as it may?
For no man under the sky lives twice, outliving his day.
And grief is a grievous thing, and a man hath enough of his tears:
Why should he labour, and bring fresh grief to blacken his years?
Thou hast conquered, O pale Galilean; the world has grown grey from thy breath; 35
We have drunken of things Lethean, and fed on the fullness of death.
Laurel is green for a season, and love is sweet for a day;
But love grows bitter with treason, and laurel outlives not May.
Sleep, shall we sleep after all? for the world is not sweet in the end;
For the old faiths loosen and fall, the new years ruin and rend. 40
Fate is a sea without shore, and the soul is a rock that abides;
But her ears are vexed with the roar and her face with the foam of the tides.
O lips that the live blood faints in, the leavings of racks and rods!
O ghastly glories of saints, dead limbs of gibbeted Gods!
Though all men abase them before you in spirit, and all knees bend, 45
I kneel not neither adore you, but standing, look to the end.
All delicate days and pleasant, all spirits and sorrows are cast
Far out with the foam of the present that sweeps to the surf of the past:

I guess there's no reason to put more. If anyone read that much they would go to the trouble to read the rest on another page.

http://webapp1.dlib.indiana.edu/swin...rand=swinburne

And also, another stanza from "The Garden of Proserpine," which was quoted above by Quark. Not the second stanza but one farther along in it.

From too much love of living,
From hope and fear set free,
We thank with brief thanksgiving
Whatever gods may be
That no life lives for ever; 85
That dead men rise up never;
That even the weariest river
Winds somewhere safe to sea.

http://webapp1.dlib.indiana.edu/swin...rand=swinburne

[JBI]

Foucault's methodology cannot do anything to poetry, in truth, nothing after Frye really seems to do much, in terms of expanding poetry, besides Derrida, and Paul de Man - the only thing the post-Derrida theories do is contextualize, not actually read the poem, unless they are, of course, theories rooted in, more or less, the technical discourse created by new critics, in other words, rhetorical discussion - no matter how much French Theory one digests, they still won't gain anything in terms of understanding a poem, only, in a sense understanding discourses, which, though useful, and easily applicable to novels, seems rather lacking when talking about poetry - the I A Richards mindset, though flawed, and updated, combined with a Frye approach, and a Derrida sense of deconstruction works - no amount of culture criticism is going to say anything useful about poetry, no matter how hard they try. The whole set of technical vocabulary is, ultimately, a New Criticism creation, and as such, poetry, in terms of the way we read, is essentially rooted in that discourse.

Close reading, ultimately, is the only way to judge a poem - the problem you suppose, isn't one of whether the method is dated, but rather, whether such reading for value is wrong, a case which even Frye made, calling it the ultimate degradation for the critic. Yet at the same time, if you cannot understand how the poem means, how things fit together, why certain effects do certain things, than really, a reading is limited. Something as simple as looking for synonyms, for instance, tells volumes about poetry, whereas looking for carnivalesque elements, though a great way to approach novels, rarely tells much about a poem, a poem being a very undialogical form.

By the way, I am no champion of Leavis, or of Richards, I merely tried to point out the drastic shift in the 20th century in terms of the way we read poem, I myself wouldn't agree with Leavis in arguing one should figure out the meaning of the poem, and would argue more with Derrida in that one should figure out how it means - but even still, the whole tradition of poetic reading, other than contextualizing which goes back further, seems, at least in the modern era, indebted to new criticism - the terminology, the the actual ability to discuss something other than subjective, rather meaningless things, like "this poem is so deeply beautiful" which says nothing - that's all new criticism.

Your discourses on discourse, Ideology, and power for the most part work better with novels, as does the bulk of contemporary criticism, as it seems written by novel readers for novel reading academics. People, when they read poems, aren't reading the biography of the author, they are reading the poems themselves - they may know a little, but ultimately, what they are reading is the poem, not the poet. In that sense, though in criticism we may compare poems to each other, in practice, each poem is able to be evaluated individually, when we are putting a value on things. Foucault said a lot of stuff, but I hardly see its relevance, nor do I see Kristeva's, or Butler's, or Bakhtin's or whomever's when reading a poem like this - ultimately, I go back to Frye, not these discourse savvy culture critics, who, though they make a name for themselves criticizing cultures and the way texts connect to them, say very little about the poetry itself.

And yes, I am a fan of many of these theorists (though my knowledge has a strong limitation to only the most famous critics, and the major players in Canadian criticism, as that is generally where I read the most criticism) but ultimately, one can't help but feel their limitation. Barthes' approach to Balzac and Racine works, simply because he is dealing with a text of that sort - I am yet to see one of these theorists really come up with an adequate way to read poetry, in truth, I cannot find any suitable single guide myself - for classical poetry, ending at the publishing of Pound's Cathay, I would say Frye seems the best general model, but ultimately, we fall back on Leavis and Richards, sine they are the only ones who actually created a suitable, albeit flawed methodology for approaching poetry. Even Harold Bloom, who ultimately loathes new criticism cannot help but go back to them. Close reading is, ultimately, the only practical way for discussing and reading a poem - other forms are good for perhaps "reading poetry" but not for reading poems, and quite simply, I feel that I have "read enough poetry", and would work better reading poems, something which rarely seems to happen on these boards rather sadly.

[Quark]

"Hymn to Proserpine"

That's a good poem, Nikolai. Was there something in those quotations, though, that you wanted to call our attention to?

Close reading, ultimately, is the only way to judge a poem

That's not the argument, JBI. What I objected to was the point you made here:

All I get from you are broad statements of his genius, but nothing to really prove it, or show it - this isn't 1890, you're going to have to do a little better than saying it is secretive, religious, majestic, or any other third-age pseudo-Indic pseudo-philosophical adjectives you can come up with.

and again here:

That doesn't seem to mean anything to me, in terms of criticism of the actual poem; expressing words in a unique beautiful way doesn't say much to me, no offense, and hasn't held any ground in discourse since the beginning of the 20th century, ironically.

and again:

Poetry may be subjective, but, quite simply, some people are good at reading it, and understanding currents, and some are not. There is a technical vocabulary, for instance (and was one in Swinburne's day too) and there are certain exposures which help people make more educated value judgments

What's being said here is not that "close reading" is a better method of approaching a poem, but that the "technical vocabulary" of modern criticism is better than that of 1890's. Since words like sublimely beautiful haven't "held any ground in discourse since the beginning of the 20th century" you reason that we shouldn't listen to them on LitNet. Of course, the same objection could be raised against your own post. Substantial criticism today does not consist of picking apart the meaning of a line and its technique. Often that's what goes on in High School classrooms: you get out your Shakespeare and say this is iambic pentameter and this is the theme and there's a chiasmus. But it's something that really hasn't "held any ground" recently in scholarship. Again, that doesn't make it wrong, but it does make those posts above seem unaware. That's what I was pointing out.

the problem you suppose, isn't one of whether the method is dated

Right.

By the way, I am no champion of Leavis, or of Richards, I merely tried to point out the drastic shift in the 20th century in terms of the way we read poem

I thought that might be the case, so I switched to Empson later on--who I think is much more in line with what you're saying.

[kelby_lake]

I wanted to put him as one of the poets I like in my personal statement, because I do, but now I'm worried that it's not good enough...