German Poetry

[Albion]

I like translating poems but am somewhat disappointed at the German literature. Not only does Germany not share the creativity that characterizes English or French literature, in particular novelists comparable to Jane Austen, George Eliot, Charles Dickens, Victor Hugo, etc, but also lacks the lyrical poetry of Wordsworth, Shelley, Keats, Tennyson, Hugo (again) etc.

Goethe, Schiller, Heine, Eichendorff, for example, are very fine poets and have their moving love and death motives like any others; but are confined to relatively lame expressions in praise of nature and tend to contain a level of resignation or cynicism not found in such degree elsewhere.

I suspect this is a reflection of the lack of unification of Germany (amazingly not until 1871) and the consequent absorbing of many fine minds in the administration of numerous principalities as well as to the relatively landlocked geographical position of the country (particularly Austria) which tended to exclude world visions. Furthermore, they were probably unhappily aware that the world was passing them by in industrialization and world leadership, particularly illustrated in the defeats suffered in the earlier years of the Napoleonic wars, and sought consolation in introversion.
The German culture seems to glorify only what was available to them in their very fine scenery (much excelling that of Britain and encouraging very fine pastoral topics) and, later, the mores found in the unadventurous biedermeier society.

The Austro-German culture was, however, superb in transforming these works into wonderful lieder art songs unmatched by any other country and we will ever be indebted to Schubert, Schumann, Strauss and, to some extent, Beethoven and Mozart for them.
Elsewhere in this platform, I made a plea for the works of Richard Wagner to be understood as great poetry. He was a superb composer but his drama texts are often overlooked or even disdained. They are, however, also great art works in themselves: hours of poetic text full of dramatic and human themes with each drama occupying a different style.

I am sure we can still find good writing in Germany as elsewhere; but I regret that literature the world over is losing its nationalities and merging into a relative mediocrity where few lights now sparkle in the gloom.

[Madame X]

but I regret that literature the world over is losing its nationalities and merging into a relative mediocrity where few lights now sparkle in the gloom.

Writ as would a Teuton true.

[stlukesguild]

I like translating poems but am somewhat disappointed at the German literature. Not only does Germany not share the creativity that characterizes English or French literature, in particular novelists comparable to Jane Austen, George Eliot, Charles Dickens, Victor Hugo, etc, but also lacks the lyrical poetry of Wordsworth, Shelley, Keats, Tennyson, Hugo (again) etc.

Nonsense. I agree (and I think even Goethe would agree) that Germany came into literary maturity rather late (if we exclude medieval writings such as Parsival and the Nibelungenlied. On the other hand, one would be more than hard-pressed to name a literary equal to Goethe of the same era. I can't imagine a more inventive author. He is actually famous for rarely ever repeating himself. In prose he offers masterful examples of aphorisms, novellas, short stories, fairy tales/parables, the bildungromance, the novel, the travelogue, and the autobiography. Among his poetry we find almost every poetic form imaginable... including verse dramas... and then there's Faust I and II... those hybrids of true genius. And that's just Goethe!

Among others there's Novalis (a marvelously original voice), Schiller, Heine, E.T.A. Hoffmann, Buchner... Nietzsche, Freud, Kafka (can you think of a trio with a larger impact upon Modernist thinking?), Holderlin (who may have been the poet best served by translators (at least among older writers), Robert Walser, George Trakl, Frank Wedekind, Rilke (perhaps one of the two or three most translated of modern poets and certainly a towering figure among modern poetry), Thomas Mann, Hermann Hesse, Gunter Grass, Herman Broch, Max Frisch, Friederich Durrenmatt, Heinrich Boll, Ingeborg Bachmann, Paul Celan, etc... It would appear to me that German literature more than holds its own from the time of Lessing, Schiller and Goethe to the 20th century... and from that time forward it might be argued that German literature and German culture in general is among the most dominant.

Goethe, Schiller, Heine, Eichendorff, for example, are very fine poets and have their moving love and death motives like any others; but are confined to relatively lame expressions in praise of nature and tend to contain a level of resignation or cynicism not found in such degree elsewhere.

How so? How is the German praise of nature any more (or less) "lame" than that found in the writing of the Romantic poets of any European country? Novalis lame? Holderlin lame? If so then Shelley, Keats, and Wordsworth might be easily accused of the same. As for cynicism or resignation... how are they the sign of literary weakness? Is Nietzsche or Hesse or Mann or Heine really any more cynical than Sartre, Baudelaire, Rimbaud, Leopardi, or even Oscar Wilde?

I suspect this is a reflection of the lack of unification of Germany (amazingly not until 1871) and the consequent absorbing of many fine minds in the administration of numerous principalities as well as to the relatively landlocked geographical position of the country (particularly Austria) which tended to exclude world visions.

The last point is intriguing... but it ignores the fact that Germany sits in a central position between Italy to the south, Russia and Eastern Europe to the east, France to the West, and the Netherlands and Britain to the North/Northwest. The influence of this influx of trade can be clearly seen not only in the literature, but in the art and architecture and the music. Music certainly more than challenges any notion of German provincialism. The German-speaking lands dominate music to an extent unequaled in art or literature: Bach, Beethoven, Mozart, Brahms, Haydn, Handel, Schubert, Wagner, Schumann, Richard Strauss, Mahler, etc...

Furthermore, they were probably unhappily aware that the world was passing them by in industrialization and world leadership, particularly illustrated in the defeats suffered in the earlier years of the Napoleonic wars, and sought consolation in introversion.

Perhaps... but then the Russian novel was born in a culture that was medieval by the standards of many European nations. They continued to rise to the greatest heights (Pasternak, Mayakovsky, Bulgakov, Gogol, Mandelstam, Kandinsky, Tsvetaeva, Prokofiev, Shostakovitch) while under the rein of the repressive Soviet regime.

One might argue that German culture... especially as centered in Berlin and Vienna... is only rivaled by that of France (in Paris) and the US in the last century. Among the writers in German we find Nietzsche, Freud, Kafka, Walser, Hermann Hesse, Thomas Mann, Frank Wedekind, Max Frisch, Georg Trakl, Hugo von Hoffmansthal, Stephan George, Friederich Durrenmatt, Gunter Grass, Paul Celan, Rilke, Joseph Roth, Hermann Broch, etc... Among the German artists we find Gustave Klimt, Egon Schiele, E.L. Kirchner, Paul Klee, George Grosz, Otto Dix, Max Ernst, Joseph Albers, Mies van der Rohe, Max Beckmann, on through the current figures such as George Baselitz, Gerhard Richter, and Anselm Kiefer. We might add to this the outsiders who came into prominence in Germany (just as Picasso and Modigliani came into maturity in Paris) and include Kandinsky, Edvard Munch, Lyonel Feininger, etc... Add film to the mix and we have Robert Wiene (The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari), Paul Wegener (The Golem: How He Came Into the World), Friedrich Wilhelm Murnau (Nosferatu), Fritz Lang (Metropolis, M...), on through Leni Riefenstahl, Werner Herzog, Rainer Werner Fassbender, and Wolfgang Petersen. And music? Mahler, Richard Strauss, Alexander Zemlinsky, Kurt Weill, Alban Berg, Arnold Schoenberg, Anton Webern, Joseph Marx, Franz Schreker, Paul Hindemith, Erich Korngold, Hans Werner Henze, Carl Orff, Alfred Schnittke, etc... and this does not begin to touch upon performers, conductors or orchestras.

Of course I may be biased... being of German heritage.

[mortalterror]

Of course I may be biased... being of German heritage.

As am I, but with the exception of Buchner and Hesse I do not care for their literature. Goethe you have to respect without really appreciating, much as we tend to do with Milton in our own language but other than that, I think Schiller and Lessing wouldn't overshadow Jonson and Dekker if placed back to back.

However, I did read some of Gottfried Benn's poetry the other day, and it wasn't half bad. Nothing truly inspired mind you. He doesn't put Rilke to any kind of threat, but neither does Rilke challenge Eliot either when you come down to it. I'd put Rilke a little ahead of Montale, and a little behind Neruda.

Odd that someone should compare the German's to the likes of Shelly, Byron, and Keats who's work I don't have a great deal of respect for anyway. The three of them come off as undisciplined kids to me most of the time. The more I delve into the 18th and 17th centuries the more charming the writers of that era appear. Dryden, Pope, Johnson, Wilmot, Goldsmith, Swift, Gay, Addison, Fielding, and Richardson are really starting to grow on me. Despite being raised to the Romantics I believe that these men are quite the equal of their successors.

[Albion]

StLukesGuild
My regard for German culture is second to none. I have lived in Germany and love the country and its heritage more than that of other countries. You are right to extol the pre-eminence of German music; actually, it is world music because any other is inevitably measured against it. I second your list of German composers. My passing reference to Germany's contribution to music was far from slighting; no other country comes near to Austro German heritage here (but I hope your omission of Italy was an oversight).

Germany's geographical position must have contributed greatly to it's maturity; and it's contribution to European and US culture is beyond question. The underlying factor was probably its remoteness in Roman times which allowed it to develop its own culture along north European lines independently from Latin intrusions. Russian culture, in particular, owes a lot to Germany being guided by Catherine II from the 18th century towards French and German models of society, literature and music; and Britain had a close association with Germany until the sad events following the close of the 19th century.

Neither do I disparage the works of the authors listed, although I cannot claim I like them all or even think they are all great figures, particularly some of those 20th century writers mentioned; but that is largely a matter of taste. (You forgot Storm). German painters were certainly influential and deserve a place in history. They were different from but probably not superior to, say, the pre-Raphaelites in a different way; but this similarity of achievement does not negate the reputation of either group. I am not a film scholar but must disagree on the German film heritage which I find rather poor. But try Bernhard Wicki.

My comments were addressed to poetry, however, and, in particular to 19th century poets. All literature is a matter of taste: I do not recognize in the German poets I mentioned the humanity of the (largely English and French) romantic poets ( I am, unfortunately, entirely ignorant of Italian contributions); but I did not say I disdained them, merely that they chose different methods with which to address their subjects. Indeed, they are redeemed in their musical transformations set by the great composers you mention.

Of course they addressed love and death and other powerful themes but I am disappointed at their style. Other romantic poets addressed similar subjects including pastoral ones but I believe they achieved a closer identification with the plaintive human condition, for example, in the lyricism of a Shelley or a Keats than the Germans managed, however undeniably great in other directions.

[stlukesguild]

As am I, but with the exception of Buchner and Hesse I do not care for their literature.

I would not argue that German literature is the rival of that of Britain or France... and perhaps not even American or Spanish/Latin-American. On the other hand... I am quite enamored of more than a few German writers. My personal favorites would include Goethe, Holderlin, Novalis, Heine, Rilke, Hesse, Durrenmatt, Mann, Grass, Celan, and most certainly Kafka.

Goethe you have to respect without really appreciating, much as we tend to do with Milton in our own language...

But I actually do appreciate Milton. I do find that Goethe's lyrical poetry does not translate well in most instances... and many of the ones I admire most are those that I can (or was once able to) read in the original German. On the other hand... I love Faust, Werther, Egmont, and his prose writings (the Autobiographical My Life and the Italian Journey).

I think Schiller and Lessing wouldn't overshadow Jonson and Dekker if placed back to back.

Perhaps not... at least not in the case of Jonson. Still I would not dismiss them as minor writers... or at least no more minor than any number of other interesting writers from any body of literature.

However, I did read some of Gottfried Benn's poetry the other day, and it wasn't half bad. Nothing truly inspired mind you. He doesn't put Rilke to any kind of threat, but neither does Rilke challenge Eliot either when you come down to it. I'd put Rilke a little ahead of Montale, and a little behind Neruda.

I've only read but a little of Benn myself. Among the lyrical poets I find Holderlin, Rilke, and Celan the most inspired. I suspect Holderlin can hold his own against any of the British Romantics while I'd place Rilke higher than you. perhaps not above Eliot... but probably equal to him. Considering how much his poetry resonates in translation I greatly suspect that it would be all the more resonant in the original (Although one never knows for sure). Neruda and Montale are certainly strong comparisons. Many who read Italian and Spanish would place those poets equal to or above Eliot. It may be more than possible that our opinion of Eliot is colored by the fact that we read him in the original and we are more than aware of his impact upon all subsequent English-language poetry. By the way... I'm somewhat surprised that you can place Eliot so highly... considering his limited body of work and his lack of any true work of epic status. The Wasteland may be long in comparison to most lyric poetry... but is it really of epic stature? Tennyson's In Memoriam qualifies, Baudelaire's Fleurs du Mal, Neruda's Canto General and Residence on Earth, Montale's Cuttlefish Bones, Rilke's New Poems and a number of other collections by other poets clearly intended to be read as a unified whole may have a far better claim to epic status than The Wasteland (not that I don't love the poem myself ).

Odd that someone should compare the German's to the likes of Shelly, Byron, and Keats who's work I don't have a great deal of respect for anyway.

Of course I'm still quite the Romantic... in spite of my own artistic leanings that tilt more toward Modernism and Classicism. You'll also recall that the central Romantic for me is Blake.

The three of them come off as undisciplined kids to me most of the time. The more I delve into the 18th and 17th centuries the more charming the writers of that era appear. Dryden, Pope, Johnson, Wilmot, Goldsmith, Swift, Gay, Addison, Fielding, and Richardson are really starting to grow on me. Despite being raised to the Romantics I believe that these men are quite the equal of their successors.

You've been a classicist for as long as I've known you. Dryden has yet to grab me... nor Pope much, for that matter. Wilmot is a charming pervert. Swift I love... but what would you expect from someone as admittedly enamored of Borges? I'm also enthralled with Sterne, Johnson, Boswell... Have you looked much into Smart, Smollett, or Hogg?

Perhaps... as might be expected considering my Romanticist leanings... I am more enamored of even earlier poets: Traherne, Herrick, Spenser, Donne, Sidney, and obviously Shakespeare.

[stlukesguild]

My passing reference to Germany's contribution to music was far from slighting; no other country comes near to Austro German heritage here (but I hope your omission of Italy was an oversight).

I certainly don't dismiss Italian contributions to music in spite of the fact that I know there is this prejudice by some to see Italian music as lightweight in comparison. Monteverdi, Palestrina, Gesualdo, Vivaldi (especially considering the recently discovered wealth of his music just now being performed and recorded), Donizetti, Rossini, Verdi, Pucccini... I love them all... although I think I'm beginning to develop a passion more toward French and Russian music after the Austro-German. The Russians sound even better when one begins to discover the wealth of their vocal music and opera. Neither would I ignore the British contributions of the last century (Vaughan-Williams, Elgar, Bax, Delius, Britten, etc...).

German painters were certainly influential and deserve a place in history. They were different from but probably not superior to, say, the pre-Raphaelites in a different way; but this similarity of achievement does not negate the reputation of either group.

German painting and sculpture was actually towering in achievement during the late Middle-Age and the Renaissance. Painters such as Albrecht Durer...



... a giant figure who stands easily along side Raphael, Titian, and Leonardo... especially when one considers his achievements in the field of printmaking where German art excelled (Durer is often ranked as the single greatest print-maker ever)...





And then there's Matthias Grunwald... the first great German "Expressionist"...



...Lucas Cranach... the sophisticated "decadent"...



...Albrecht Altdorfer... the father of landscape painting and the panoramic view...



...Martin Schongauer... the poetic predecessor to Durer... a German Raphael...



...Hans Holbein... the master "realist"...



And we also have the marvelous wood sculptors such as Tilman Riemenschneider, Viet Stoss, Michel Erhart, etc...





All of these German artists may not rival the Italians of the period (seriously... no one comes close... and I wouldn't even think to make such a claim... the Italians dominate the visual arts... especially in the 14th-16th centuries... to the same extent that the German/Austrians dominate music) but they easily stand along side the Netherlandish artists as arguably second only to the Italians.

The 30-Years War and the other conflicts of the Reformation, however, decimated the German states and effectively destroyed the German Renaissance and German art, literature, and music. For whatever reason, the revival of German culture happened first and foremost in music (perhaps a subject worthy of research?). Following the German Renaissance and prior to the 20th century there is essentially but one truly towering figure in German art... and that is the painter, Caspar David Friedrich. Friedrich is equal to... and akin to the great English Romantic, J.M.W. Turner. Where Turner's paintings convey an explosive turbulence in nature, Friedrich conveys a sublime silence... a profound melancholia...







Friedrich would have a profound impact upon landscape painting as a whole... and especially upon the tradition as it evolved in the US... all the way through the abstractions of Mark Rothko.

continued...

[stlukesguild]

German painting in the 19th century is rather minor... more so than that of Britain even (and in comparison to what was happening in France the Pre-Raphaelites were minor, indeed). It is really with the developments in the 20th century of Expressionism and abstraction that German art takes off. The great Austrian, Gustav Klimt, represents the best image of the late 19th century Viennese "decadent" (although there are other fascinating figures such as Max Klinger, Arnold Böcklin, Ferdinand Hodler, Franz von Stuck, Thorn Prikker, and Alfred Kubin)...





Intriguingly, German literature takes flight when Schiller and Goethe reject the French literary dominance and focus instead upon Northern traditions... of British literature and medieval Germanic mythologies. The same impulse is behind the 20th century German Renaissance in art: a rejection of the French classical and Mediterranean sensibilities and a rediscovery of the Northern, "Germanic" and "Gothic"/medieval traditions. This takes flight first and foremost through the example of the Norwegian, Edvard Munch, whose career evolved in Germany:





Munch and Van Gogh... rather than the Impressionists... for the basis of German Expressionism. This... combined with an exploration of Germanic medieval art... the Gothic wood carvings and German history of print-making... leads to figures such as Egon Schiele...





E.L. Kirchner...





Emil Nolde...





Max Pechstein...



Karl Schmidt-Rottluff...



continued...

[stlukesguild]

The real explosion of German Expressionism only grows after the First World War... in spite of all the losses, chaos, political and economic turmoil...

We find decadent figures such as Christian Schad...



Otto Dix...



George Grosz...



... all of whom offer dark visions of the sleazy underbelly of urban realities between the wars.

In sculpture we find the merger of an elegant Mannerism... and a gothic sensuality in the work of Wilhelm Lehmbruck...



And then there is the towering figure of Max Beckmann... the painter only rivaled by Picasso and Matisse. Beckmann's paintings merged a medieval Germanic crudeness of drawing, a complexity of mythology and social commentary worthy of Bosch and Breughel... with the glorious colors of Gothic stained glass windows:







German Expressionism... along side of Surrealism... evolved into one of the most influential and resilient movements in modern art. It continues to inspire artists today. This is equally true of German Expressionist theater and film...









In spite of the relative limited scale of German film production the intentionally artificial look of German Expressionist film would have a profound impact not only on the look of American horror films, but also film noir, the classic films of Orson Welles, Hitchcock, and even Ingmar Bergman... on through contemporary "gothic" films such as those of Tim Burton. Much of this is due, no doubt, not merely to direct emulation, but also to the influx of German film actors, directors, and producers into Hollywood between the wars.

All of this offers a view of but a single side of the Germanic contribution to the visual arts. A contribution that might be seen as equal in importance grew out of a leaning toward abstract form... often rooted in music... or the notion that visual art might evolve into something as "pure" and abstract as music. Among the artists leaning in this direction we discover Paul Klee...



and Joseph Albers...



among many others... The arts, at this time, seem to have all come together for the first time in the German culture... so that one might be hard-pressed to argue that music or literature or painting dominated. The great tragedy is that this entire German "Renaissance" would be destroyed by the rise of the Nazis who set themselves up as the great protectors and promoters of German culture...

[mortalterror]

Those are all breathtakingly beautiful right up to Edvard Munch, but you lost me after that.

I am quite enamored of more than a few German writers. My personal favorites would include Goethe, Holderlin, Novalis, Heine, Rilke, Hesse, Durrenmatt, Mann, Grass, Celan, and most certainly Kafka.

I liked Hymns to the Night but wasn't particularly moved by them. I do have a poem by Heine in my scrapbook http://www.poetryintranslation.com/P...m#_Toc70244340 but it doesn't even dominate the page as it's overshadowed by one by Paul Eluard http://www.poetryintranslation.com/P...tm#_Toc8375620 . I find myself more enamored of minor poets like Edwin Arlington Robinson and Rudyard Kipling before my appreciation of Heine kicks in. As far as Grass goes, I tried to read his Tin Drum once, loved the first chapter but was thrown by the tone shift later. It reminds me a lot of Ralph Ellison's Invisible Man that way. You know, I forgot about Kafka. Yeah, he's good.

But I actually do appreciate Milton. I do find that Goethe's lyrical poetry does not translate well in most instances... and many of the ones I admire most are those that I can (or was once able to) read in the original German. On the other hand... I love Faust, Werther, Egmont, and his prose writings (the Autobiographical My Life and the Italian Journey).

Appreciate was a poor choice of words on my part. To me, he's like Pope. I don't like what I'm reading the first time through but looking back I see all of these perfect gems of expression and wonder why I didn't like them more. For Milton I thought Book 2 of Paradise Lost was as good as Book 2 of the Aeneid and both were some of the best poetry I've ever read. The rest of their books are fairly dense.

Goethe's "When shall I say oh stay moment stay thou art so sweet?" is also pretty good too. I was digging the beginning of his Faust part 2 not to long ago, though I haven't finished it, and the first didn't work for me. I keep trying to read Werther, especially because it's so short, and it should be easy. But there's something in there that strikes the wrong cord in me, and I never get more than a few pages. I really wasn't enjoying The Italian Journey, so when he quoted a passage of Ovid's Tristia I thought, "I'll just go read that." As for his novels, they didn't have catchy openings like Dickens or Tolstoy to hook me into the story.

Neruda and Montale are certainly strong comparisons. Many who read Italian and Spanish would place those poets equal to or above Eliot. It may be more than possible that our opinion of Eliot is colored by the fact that we read him in the original and we are more than aware of his impact upon all subsequent English-language poetry.

Well, that's certainly possible. It's not like I've read their whole ouvre. My experience of Montale is limited to Cuttlefish Bones, and I've only read a couple dozen poems by Neruda. I was struck by how good Neruda is, especially by that line in A Song of Despair "Cold flower heads are raining over my heart." He's really peaked my interest, and I look forward to reading more by him and Miguel Hernandez too.

By the way... I'm somewhat surprised that you can place Eliot so highly... considering his limited body of work and his lack of any true work of epic status. The Wasteland may be long in comparison to most lyric poetry... but is it really of epic stature? Tennyson's In Memoriam qualifies, Baudelaire's Fleurs du Mal, Neruda's Canto General and Residence on Earth, Montale's Cuttlefish Bones, Rilke's New Poems and a number of other collections by other poets clearly intended to be read as a unified whole may have a far better claim to epic status than The Wasteland (not that I don't love the poem myself ).

I don't really read them that way. It's sort of like how Faulkner said his Go Down, Moses is a novel, but to me it's plainly a collection of short stories. With The Wasteland I look at it and think, "Yeah, that's one poem." It may be an arbitrary ruling, but I'm sort of a judgemental arbitrary kind of guy. The thing that I love about Eliot is the development in his poems. Montale and Rilke have equal power of imagery and metaphor but their stuff seems so loose, disconnected. With Eliot there's always a point and each section comes in a sort of order, a rational structure. That's the sort of thing I love about Donne and Tu Fu: the precision and architecture.

You'll also recall that the central Romantic for me is Blake.

Yeah, I like him too. The Marriage of Heaven and Hell, Milton, or The Book of Thel really give him an edge over the other Romantics, except for Wordsworth.

I'm also enthralled with Sterne, Johnson, Boswell... Have you looked much into Smart, Smollett, or Hogg?

The more I read of Boswell, the more Johnson grows on me. I read his London the other day and part of his Life of Savage, so I'd know what Boswell was talking about. They're pretty good. They're like the Greeks, operating on a different set of aesthetics and once you get a hint of what they're going for, whole new worlds open up.

I read a little Smart and I think there was small reason to resurrect him.
"For I will consider my Cat Jeoffry.
For he is the servant of the Living God duly and daily serving him.
For at the first glance of the glory of God in the East he worships in his way.
For this is done by wreathing his body seven times round with elegant quickness.
For then he leaps up to catch the musk, which is the blessing of God upon his prayer.
For he rolls upon prank to work it in.
For having done duty and received blessing he begins to consider himself.
For this he performs in ten degrees."
-"Am I seriously reading a poem about this guy's cat? To hell with this."

However, I did enjoy Samuel Johnson's recollection of Smart: "Madness frequently discovers itself merely by unnecessary deviation from the usual modes of the world. My poor friend Smart showed the disturbance of his mind, by falling upon his knees, and saying his prayers in the street, or in any other unusual place. Now although, rationally speaking, it is greater madness not to pray at all, than to pray as Smart did, I am afraid there are so many who do not pray, that their understanding is not called in question."

I did steal a glance at Smollett's Roderick Random in a bookstore once and did not find it funny. I'd rather read Diderot's Jacques The Fatalist or Quevedo's The Swindler from around that time, if I had the choice. The beginning of Hogg's Justified Sinner is promising and I'll have to return to it, but I'd rather read Jame's Macpherson.

A TALE of the times of old!

Why, thou wanderer unseen! thou bender of the thistle of Lora; why, thou breeze of the valley, hast thou left mine ear? I hear no distant roar of streams! No sound of the harp from the rock! Come, thou huntress of Lutha, Malvina, call back his soul to the bard. I look forward to Lochlin of lakes, to the dark billowy bay of U-thorno, where Fingal descends from ocean, from the roar of winds. Few are the heroes of Morven in a land unknown!

Starno sent a dweller of Loda to bid Fingal to the feast; but the king remembered the past, and all his rage arose. "Nor Gormal's mossy towers, nor Starno, shall Fingal behold. Deaths wander, like shadows, over his fiery soul! Do I forget that beam of light, the white-handed daughter of kings?
http://www.sacred-texts.com/neu/ossian/oss08.htm

[stlukesguild]

My experience of Montale is limited to Cuttlefish Bones...

That's where I started... with the William Arrowsmith translation. Its the first volume of the trilogy that really established him and won the Nobel.

I've only read a couple dozen poems by Neruda. I was struck by how good Neruda is, especially by that line in A Song of Despair "Cold flower heads are raining over my heart." He's really peaked my interest, and I look forward to reading more by him and Miguel Hernandez too.

After the French, it was Spanish poetry that really drew me into reading poetry outside of the canon of the Anglo-Americans. Neruda was certainly one of the first and most central figures. His stature among 20th-century Spanish and Latin-American poets seems to be something akin to that of Whitman. The "Renaissance" of Latin-American literature is often seen as beginning with Neruda and Borges... and in spite of my admitted preference, I cannot underestimate Neruda. Hernandez? Yes. I must get back to reading a bit more by him. Indeed... I'm thinking of a Spanish Poetry thread as well.

[JBI]

Mortal, you completely misread Smart - the Jubilate isn't about the cat - the cat sequence is just the most famous part of it - the poem itself is much longer, and more about God than anything else.

[mortalterror]

Mortal, you completely misread Smart - the Jubilate isn't about the cat - the cat sequence is just the most famous part of it - the poem itself is much longer, and more about God than anything else.

I know, but my point is he was crazy.

[JBI]

I know, but my point is he was crazy.

Who cares - it adds a touch of flavor to the piece.

[mortalterror]

Who cares - it adds a touch of flavor to the piece.

For my cat is a good cat.
For my cat is a pretty cat.
For my cat eats hairballs out of its fur.