hart crane - America's greatest poet????
Paul Kloppenborg
of its confusing nature difficlut to comprehend. Crane streches langauge
to breaking point, esp. in Proem and The harbour dawn.
Any other readers have views on Crane's status in America's literary
tradition.
sometimes a Wombat
> Any other readers have views on Crane's status in America's literary
> tradition.
I think Crane was one of the more brilliant poets (note this doesn't
mean "best") America has produced, but I find him incredibly difficult
to read. Most of his work, I read and can't even catch the surface
sense of the words, let alone the meaning. It simply eludes me, and a
poem requires many readings for any sort of conprehension. Not that
this is a chore, but rather a delightful thing to do.
Whether the effort required is worth the exertion is up to you. While
I admire his ability, he doesn't count among my favorite poets.
Larry "Speaking for myself" Hammer
--
L...@physics.arizona.edu \ One like a wombat prowled obtuse
GEnie: LARRY.HAMMER \ and furry -- Christina Rossetti
John Lees (M Spinks)
Crane's poetry is confused at times, and his work is uneven, but despite these
faults Crane is easily one of the best American poets of the twentieth century.
As for _The Bridge_, it's almost an epic.
- Matthew.
s115...@giaeb.cc.monash.edu.au
Mark Taranto
I'm ashamed to admit that I'm not very familiar with Hart Crane. I'll
have to look at some of his poetry.
But I'll nominate W. H. Auden as America's Best Poet.
Mark
Douglas Clark
Hart Crane's `The Bridge' is the crux of his reputatuion. It is
uneven. The Cutty Sark section is among the best verse of the 20th
century. I also recall some magnificent rolling verse top [to] which
not much meaning could be granted. Is this the Cape Hatteras section?
This is the sort of verse which should be read aloud. The sound is great.
I think Crane's basic problem was a lack of discipline in his thought.
He was self-educated. He had a marvellous talent but didnt quite know
how to use it. His early death didnt help. I think he has only two
books. `White Buildings' and `The Bridge'. He is one of those poets
who, but for `Cutty SArk' would only exist as a legendary life.
--
Douglas Clark Voice : +44 225 427104
69 Hillcrest Drive, Bath, Avon, BA2 1HD Email : D.G.D...@bath.ac.uk
Douglas Clark
I have been spurred into re-reading Brom WEber's edition of the
Collected Poems and Letters.
`White Bridges' is mainly dull pedestrian verse but a couple of
pages burst into brilliant poetry [`Helen and Faustus 2, Voyages 2']
And that should be `Helen and Faustus 3'.
Most of `The Bridge' is dreadful but `Cutty Sark' is genius.
Of the uncollected poems there is only `Eternity' worth bothering about.
Hary [Hart] Crane is a minor poet, like Edna St Vincent Millay, with
a few suitable pages which will lasi [last] in the anthologies.
No competition for the big boys.
John Lees (M Spinks)
Umm, wasn't Auden a British poet?? Or is the preceding meant to imply that
America has produced no good poets??
- Matthew
s115...@giaeb.cc.monash.edu.au
John Lees (M Spinks)
>Hary [Hart] Crane is a minor poet, like Edna St Vincent Millay, with
>a few suitable pages which will lasi [last] in the anthologies.
>No competition for the big boys.
I don't think this is a fair assessment of Crane's achievement. Confusion,
unevenness, incoherency, sentimentality - these are all charges which can be
laid against Crane's poetry. But when all is said and done Crane is still a
major poet. Crane's poetry tells us much of his own condition, of his
homosexuality, of being a poet, of mercy and of romantic love. Crane tells
us what it is to be human; and, more than that, he relates something of what
it is to be human in the twentieth century. This is a considerable
achievement, one hardly matched by poets in English in this century; and it
makes Crane, despite his faults, a major American poet and man of letters.
- Matthew.
s115...@giaeb.cc.monash.edu.au
Mark Taranto
> mtar...@panix.com (Mark Taranto) writes:
>> But I'll nominate W. H. Auden as America's Best Poet.
> Umm, wasn't Auden a British poet?? Or is the preceding meant to imply that
> America has produced no good poets??
Auden was born in the UK, but became an American citizen.
If England claims Eliot, I insist that the USA claim Auden.
Mark
Douglas Clark
I made a point of reading all of Crane before making my judgement,
which is based on the quality of the verse and the intermittent poetry.
I would stand by it. John Unterecker's Life `Voyager' is the real poetry.
Douglas Clark
Auden is English, Eliot is American.
And I have always thought the Lady from Amherst to be over-rated,
although she does have some sweet lyrics and the occasional great poem.
Douglas Clark
>In the referenced article, exx...@mail.bath.ac.uk (Douglas Clark) writes:
>>
>>I am old-fshioned [fashioned]. My pantheon is Eliot, Yeats, Pound.
>>I dont go for Williams, Stevens. There is nobody top-class since the WAr.
>>--
>>Douglas Clark Voice : +44 225 427104
>>69 Hillcrest Drive, Bath, Avon, BA2 1HD Email : D.G.D...@bath.ac.uk
>
>
>include him in.
>--
>Douglas Clark Voice : +44 225 427104
>69 Hillcrest Drive, Bath, Avon, BA2 1HD Email : D.G.D...@bath.ac.uk
I goofed. I meant to say `Caliban to the audience' from 'The sea and the
mirror'. But on reflection I think Auden's entire oeuvre puts him up there.
Douglas Clark
I am old-fshioned [fashioned]. My pantheon is Eliot, Yeats, Pound.
I dont go for Williams, Stevens. There is nobody top-class since the WAr.
Mark Taranto
> Mmm. Just curious - whom do you consider to have been the major poets
> (American and otherwise) of our century?
Of those who wrote in English --
W. H. Auden
T. S. Eliot
W. B. Yeats
Ezra Pound and Christopher Isherwood rank among the best "editors" of
poetry -- for what they did for Eliot and Auden.
Mark
Mark Taranto
> Auden is English, Eliot is American.
Not when they died.
> And I have always thought the Lady from Amherst to be over-rated,
Not when she was alive.
Mark
John Lees (M Spinks)
Mmm. Just curious - whom do you consider to have been the major poets
(American and otherwise) of our century?
- Matthew.
s115...@giaeb.cc.monash.edu.au
Michael Bruce McDonald
Mark, you sly dog, you.
Let us hear your bark, Mark.
Michael, who would recommend Auden's "The Shield of Achilles"
as perhaps the supreme exemplar of the idiomatically
postmodern poem
Douglas Clark
I forgot about Auden's `The SEa and the mirror'. Perhaps we may
include him in.
John Lees (M Spinks)
>In the referenced article, mtar...@panix.com (Mark Taranto) writes:
>>John Lees (M Spinks) <s115...@giaeb.cc.monash.edu.au> writes:
>>
>>> mtar...@panix.com (Mark Taranto) writes:
>>
>>>> But I'll nominate W. H. Auden as America's Best Poet.
>>
>>> Umm, wasn't Auden a British poet?? Or is the preceding meant to imply that
>>> America has produced no good poets??
>>
>>Auden was born in the UK, but became an American citizen.
>>
>>If England claims Eliot, I insist that the USA claim Auden.
>>
>>Mark
>>
>
>Auden is English, Eliot is American.
Call me perverse, perhaps, but this would have been my assessment as well -
that Auden is an English poet and Eliot, an American.
>And I have always thought the Lady from Amherst to be over-rated,
>although she does have some sweet lyrics and the occasional great poem.
Umm. I don't know about this - I'm not sure that it's possible to
overrate E.D....
- Matthew.
s115...@giaeb.cc.monash.edu.au
Douglas Clark
No, Mark. You have to include Pound.
Douglas Clark
It is an insult to poetry not to include Pound. I am just back
from the pub so I cannot rant and rave. His class output is as
good as any of the others. We can admit that the Cantos were
botched. And Mark is also ub [under-rating ] Isherwood I realise.
Have a drink, Mark.
Mark Taranto
> It is an insult to poetry not to include Pound. I am just back
> from the pub so I cannot rant and rave. His class output is as
> good as any of the others. We can admit that the Cantos were
> botched. And Mark is also ub [under-rating ] Isherwood I realise.
No insult was intended, with regards to Pound. The truth is that I've
read very little Pound. I'll endeavor to read more, and may then
place him in the Pantheon.
As for Isherwood, my reference was to the fact that he often read over
Auden's works, deleting lines and making suggestions. He was not a
poet -- but perhaps he should be brought up in the thread on best
autobiographies.
> Have a drink, Mark.
This is the second invitation to have a drink which I've received from
someone in England this week. I'll have to make a trip.
Mark
Si Courtenage
>Okay, now what about among poets who've written poetry in a language other
>than English??
Marina Tsetaeva. Russian.
I wish I could read Russian, but I have Ellen Feinstein's translations which
are well done.
Andy.
-----
Merci, la vie.
Ken Wolman
|> >
|> >Okay, now what about among poets who've written poetry in a language other
|> >than English??
|>
|>
|> German: Stefan George, Rainer Maria Rilke, Paul Celan
|> French: Paul Valery, Guillaume Apollonaire, Rene Char
|> Russian: Alexander Blok, Anna Ahkmatova, Boris Pasternak
Spanish: Federico Garcia-Lorca, Pablo Neruda, Octavio Paz.
--
Kenneth Wolman | Don't be a baby.
IBM T.J. Watson Research Center | Be a man.
914-784-7582 | Sell out.
c1...@watson.ibm.com | -- Lenny Bruce, c. 1960
sometimes a Wombat
>
> It is an insult to poetry not to include Pound. His class output is as
> good as any of the others.
I confess that I have never thought Pound was good except in occasional
fits. The Mauberly stuff, even, leaves me entirely unmoved, even at
his skill. There are a couple lyrics which I can delight in his having
written, but other than that, fpui.
> We can admit that the Cantos were botched.
Easily. We can very easily.
Now, admittedly, I am out of sorts with the Modernists, the High
Modernists especially, in general; but I still like and in some cases
approve of Eliot and others. Pound doesn't press any of my buttons.
Larry "Crank" Hammer
--
\ Absence diminishes small loves and increases
L...@physics.arizona.edu \ great ones, as the wind blows out the candle
sometimes a Wombat \ and blows up the bonfire. -- La Rochefoucauld
John Lees (M Spinks)
Okay, now what about among poets who've written poetry in a language other
than English??
- Matthew.
s115...@giaeb.cc.monash.edu.au
Rebecca Leann Smit Crowley
: America's Best Poets (*my* hierarchy)
. . ( lots of interesting stuff deleted )
: Tertiaries: Edwin Arlington Robinson
Are you serious?
: Honorable Mentions:
Robert Fitzgerald
I have to agree with you here, however. I stumbled across an
anthology completely by accident and enjoyed it immensely. Neile
Graham was kind enough, in response to a query about Fitzgerald,
to mail me an article about him. But other than the anthology
and the article, I had seen no other reference to him (mind you,
I don't read _about_ poetry much).
: Overrated: Edgar Allan Poe, William Carlos Williams, E. E. Cummings,
: John Berryman, Robert Lowell, Denise Levertov, Allen Ginsberg, Adrienne
: Rich
I'd agree with all of those.
: Of Historical Interest Principally:
: Carl Sandburg
Seems kind of mean, somehow.
--
Rebecca Crowley standard disclaimers apply rcro...@zso.dec.com
Homogenity of belief is unhealthy and dead dull.
kevin sawad brooks
>
>I am old-fshioned [fashioned]. My pantheon is Eliot, Yeats, Pound.
>I dont go for Williams, Stevens. There is nobody top-class since the WAr.
i prefer williams, stevens, frost, lowell, ...
>--
>Douglas Clark Voice : +44 225 427104
>69 Hillcrest Drive, Bath, Avon, BA2 1HD Email : D.G.D...@bath.ac.uk
--
"This is a signature?"
John Lees (M Spinks)
>In article <93340.11...@psuvm.psu.edu>, <AD...@psuvm.psu.edu> writes:
>|> >
>|> >Okay, now what about among poets who've written poetry in a language other
>|> >than English??
>|>
>|> If you're just looking for some names, here are a few:
I was more interested to see whom people read and whom they regarded highly;
I'm well familiar with the poets given below.
>|> German: Stefan George, Rainer Maria Rilke, Paul Celan
>|> French: Paul Valery, Guillaume Apollonaire, Rene Char
>|> Russian: Alexander Blok, Anna Ahkmatova, Boris Pasternak
>
>Spanish: Federico Garcia-Lorca, Pablo Neruda, Octavio Paz.
Also Vallejo in Spanish, Mandelstam in Russian, Trakl in German, and Cavafy in
Greek, surely.
- Matthew.
s115...@gaieb.cc.monash.edu.au
John Lees (M Spinks)
>In article <93340.11...@psuvm.psu.edu>, <AD...@psuvm.psu.edu> writes:
>|> >
>|> >Okay, now what about among poets who've written poetry in a language other
>|> >than English??
>|>
>|> If you're just looking for some names, here are a few:
>|>
>|> German: Stefan George, Rainer Maria Rilke, Paul Celan
>|> French: Paul Valery, Guillaume Apollonaire, Rene Char
>|> Russian: Alexander Blok, Anna Ahkmatova, Boris Pasternak
>
>Spanish: Federico Garcia-Lorca, Pablo Neruda, Octavio Paz.
Oh, I almost forgot - Jozef and Ady in Hungarian, of course, and Camapana
in Italian.
- Matthew.
s115...@giaeb.cc.monash.edu.au
AD...@psuvm.psu.edu
s115...@giaeb.cc.monash.edu.au (John Lees (M Spinks)) says:
>
>Okay, now what about among poets who've written poetry in a language other
>than English??
If you're just looking for some names, here are a few:
German: Stefan George, Rainer Maria Rilke, Paul Celan
French: Paul Valery, Guillaume Apollonaire, Rene Char
Russian: Alexander Blok, Anna Ahkmatova, Boris Pasternak
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
--Allan Burns
AD...@psuvm.psu.edu
says:
>
>I am old-fshioned [fashioned]. My pantheon is Eliot, Yeats, Pound.
>I dont go for Williams, Stevens. There is nobody top-class since the WAr.
An old-fashioned modernist? Well, from Eliot and Pound you might at
least go on to Bunting and Zukofsky . . .
But there are other "top-class" poets still living, as I've pointed out
before: A. R. Ammons, Charles Tomlinson, Geoffrey Hill, and Seamus
Heaney, for starters. At least check all of 'em out before you
dismiss the claims of contemporary poets.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
--Allan Burns
AD...@psuvm.psu.edu
Supreme Potentate: Walt Whitman
Hierophants: Ralph Waldo Emerson, Emily Dickinson, Robert Frost, Wallace
Stevens, T. S. Eliot, A. R. Ammons (Which one ain't like the others?)
Tertiaries: Edwin Arlington Robinson, Ezra Pound, Hart Crane, Elizabeth
Bishop, James Merrill, John Ashbery
Honorable Mentions: F. G. Tuckerman, Elinor Wylie, H. D., Marianne Moore,
Archibald MacLeish, Robert Francis, Robert Penn Warren, Theodore Roethke,
Robert Fitzgerald, Robert Pinsky
Overrated: Edgar Allan Poe, William Carlos Williams, E. E. Cummings,
John Berryman, Robert Lowell, Denise Levertov, Allen Ginsberg, Adrienne
Rich
Of Historical Interest Principally: Anne Bradstreet, Edward Taylor,
Philip Freneau, Joel Barlow, William Cullen Bryant, Henry Wadsworth
Longfellow, John Greenleaf Whittier, Oliver Wendell Holmes, James
Russell Lowell, Edgar Lee Masters, Carl Sandburg, Edna St. Vincent
Millay, many more, many others soon . . .
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
--Allan Burns
AD...@psuvm.psu.edu
says:
>
>Hary [Hart] Crane is a minor poet, like Edna St Vincent Millay, with
>a few suitable pages which will lasi [last] in the anthologies.
>No competition for the big boys.
"Like . . . Millay": sure you aren't thinking of Stephen? And note
that so perspicacious a reader of poetry as Harold Bloom would place
Hart among "the big boys" . . .
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
--Allan Burns
Torkel Franzen
edu.au (John Lees (M Spinks)) writes:
>Oh, I almost forgot - Jozef and Ady in Hungarian, of course, and Camapana
>in Italian.
You left out Fnord Glorbut, possibly the greatest living poet.
Matthias Weber
I agree with this list, but would like to include some more:
German: Georg Trakl, Gottfried Benn, Ingeborg Bachmann
Russian: Arsenij Tarkowskij, Ossip Mandelstam
Italian: Giuseppe Ungaretti, Giacomo Leopardi
Portugeese: Fernando Pessoa
That's it for the moment.
Matthias
John Lees (M Spinks)
My additions weren't meant to be all-encompassing, by any means; rather,
they were just random selections from my rather eclectic and idiosyncratic
readings of 20th century poets.:-)
- Matthew.
s115...@giaeb.cc.monash.edu.au
Steve R. Van Dien
: I am old-fshioned [fashioned]. My pantheon is Eliot, Yeats, Pound.
: ... There is nobody top-class since the WAr.
: --
Among American poets since WWII, how about Robert Penn Warren and James
Dickey?
Steve Van Dien
kevin sawad brooks
>In article <2dun14$i...@harbinger.cc.monash.edu.au>,
>s115...@giaeb.cc.monash.edu.au (John Lees (M Spinks)) says:
>>
>>Okay, now what about among poets who've written poetry in a language other
>>than English??
>
>If you're just looking for some names, here are a few:
>
>German: Stefan George, Rainer Maria Rilke, Paul Celan
holderlin? -- just another name.
>French: Paul Valery, Guillaume Apollonaire, Rene Char
was baudelaire an oversight? what about mallarme? oh, they are only
the most seminal for modernism.
>Russian: Alexander Blok, Anna Ahkmatova, Boris Pasternak
--
"This is a signature?"
kevin sawad brooks
>AD...@psuvm.psu.edu wrote:
>: America's Best Poets (*my* hierarchy)
>
> . . ( lots of interesting stuff deleted )
>
>: John Berryman, Robert Lowell, Denise Levertov, Allen Ginsberg, Adrienne
>: Rich
>
>I'd agree with all of those.
what are you talking about? are you crazy? i suppose williams, for example,
is so overrated that several generations of american (u.s.) and
non-american poets consider his work to be, with pound and frost, the most
important poetic work produced by america during the 20th century.
are you a poet?
kevin brooks
ksbr...@midway.uchicago.edu
Michael Bruce McDonald
>America's Best Poets (*my* hierarchy)
>
>Supreme Potentate: Walt Whitman
>
>Hierophants: Ralph Waldo Emerson, Emily Dickinson, Robert Frost, Wallace
>Stevens, T. S. Eliot, A. R. Ammons (Which one ain't like the others?)
>
>Tertiaries: Edwin Arlington Robinson, Ezra Pound, Hart Crane, Elizabeth
>Bishop, James Merrill, John Ashbery
While I sort of admire the trouble you went to to compile this list, I wonder
what logic could elevate Emerson--who left us a small but finely crafted and
realized body of poems--over Crane and Bishop and Ashberry, poets who gave
themselves to their work in a manner matched by Emerson only in his essays
(it's hard for me to see Emerson as much more, finally, than an incidental
poet).
Also, I love father Walt as much as the next bloke, but Walt's lucky that
Emily D was proleptically there to give the antidote to his sometimes
outrageously unnuanced buoyancy. Much as I love Whitman, one essentially
can know his entire range of thought on the basis of a few sections of *Song of
Myself*; these are great thoughts, but he repeated them his entire creative
life. If pressed, I would have to call Dickinson the greater poet, if only on
the basis of her nigh unfathomable ability nearly constantly to surprise us
with ideas which are unique to *each* particular poem.
Michael McDonald
Danny Iacovou
>Honorable Mentions: F. G. Tuckerman, Elinor Wylie, H. D., Marianne Moore,
>Archibald MacLeish, Robert Francis, Robert Penn Warren, Theodore Roethke,
>Robert Fitzgerald, Robert Pinsky
Just as some trivia, I've taken several classes by Archibald MacLeish's
nephew who now teaches at the U of Minnesota.
>Overrated: Edgar Allan Poe, William Carlos Williams, E. E. Cummings,
>John Berryman, Robert Lowell, Denise Levertov, Allen Ginsberg, Adrienne
>Rich
Now, more some disagreement, WHAT!!! William Carlos Williams, E. E. Cummings
and Allen Ginsberg are overrated?? Allen Ginsberg's poetry forged a
generation and then some. What makes you say he is overrated?
--
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Neophytos Iacovou
University of Minnesota email: iac...@cs.umn.edu
Computer Science Department ...!rutgers!umn-cs!iacovou
AD...@psuvm.psu.edu
>the most seminal for modernism.
Excuse me, but this thread was devoted to great *20th C* poets in
languages other than English. A real oversight may have been the
Russian poet Hodasevich.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
--Allan Burns
AD...@psuvm.psu.edu
Bruce McDonald) says:
>
>In article <93340.12...@psuvm.psu.edu>, <AD...@psuvm.psu.edu> writes:
>>America's Best Poets (*my* hierarchy)
>>
>>Supreme Potentate: Walt Whitman
>>
>>Hierophants: Ralph Waldo Emerson, Emily Dickinson, Robert Frost, Wallace
>>Stevens, T. S. Eliot, A. R. Ammons (Which one ain't like the others?)
>>
>>Tertiaries: Edwin Arlington Robinson, Ezra Pound, Hart Crane, Elizabeth
>>Bishop, James Merrill, John Ashbery
>
>While I sort of admire the trouble you went to to compile this list, I wonder
>what logic could elevate Emerson--who left us a small but finely crafted and
>realized body of poems--over Crane and Bishop and Ashberry, poets who gave
>themselves to their work in a manner matched by Emerson only in his essays
>(it's hard for me to see Emerson as much more, finally, than an incidental
>poet).
Well, this isn't the answer to which one ain't like the others, but I'll
still try to respond. (And I kind of expected the Emerson pick to be
one of the controversial ones.) Anyway, Emerson earns "points" to my
mind for several things. First, read all the poets before Emerson
(from Bradstreet to Bryant) and then turn to Emerson. It's a revelation.
Second, look at how Emerson pioneered (in America) organic form in
poems like "The Snow-Storm" (where, among other thing, the repeated
"i" diphthongs simulate the swirling storm). Third, think about how
Emerson's theory and practice *enabled* most of the best subsequent
American poets, from Whitman and Dickinson to Frost and Stevens to
Ammons. Surely that influence is no negligible thing. (Look, for
instance, at what Whitman must have learned, not only from "The Poet,"
but also from a poem like "Merlin.") Fourth, Emerson has been valued as
a poet by many of the best poets and critics in American lit. Frost went
so far as to call "Uriel" the best Western poem yet written. (It *is*
a great poem, but that judgment must remain personal.) More sober
judgments by others (incl. Harold Bloom and Hyatt Waggoner) would still
place him high, perhaps as high as I have placed him.
(And, BTW, Emerson considered himself principally a poet, even if
that is not our custom today. See a letter--written to his first
wife, I think--that makes this explicit.)
>Also, I love father Walt as much as the next bloke, but Walt's lucky that
>Emily D was proleptically there to give the antidote to his sometimes
>outrageously unnuanced buoyancy. Much as I love Whitman, one essentially
>can know his entire range of thought on the basis of a few sections of *Song
>of
>Myself*; these are great thoughts, but he repeated them his entire creative
>life. If pressed, I would have to call Dickinson the greater poet, if only on
>the basis of her nigh unfathomable ability nearly constantly to surprise us
>with ideas which are unique to *each* particular poem.
I think it close to outrageous to say what you have said about Whitman's
"thought" and "Song of Myself." Whitman's great strength (and his
major advantage over Dickinson) is his great sense of the American scene
and his engagement with a crucial era of American history. Whitman's
self is undoubtedly one of his great subjects, but so are the Civil War
and the possibilities of democracy. I maintain that his best poem is
"When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom'd"--in fact, I would go so far
as to call it the greatest American poem. But there are many, many
others in _Leaves of Grass_ not redundant with "Song of Myself."
Think, for instance, of "Out of the Cradle Endlessly Rocking," "The
Wound-Dresser," "A Noiseless Patient Spider," and so on . . . No other
American poet has written so many poems of the first rank, and that, in
my opinion, is the final test.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
--Allan Burns
AD...@psuvm.psu.edu
Leann Smit Crowley") says:
>
>AD...@psuvm.psu.edu wrote:
>: America's Best Poets (*my* hierarchy)
>
> . . ( lots of interesting stuff deleted )
>
>: Tertiaries: Edwin Arlington Robinson
>
>Are you serious?
Absolutely. He's taken for granted today as the writer of several
memorable but uncomplicated anthology pieces ("Luke Havergal," "Richard
Cory"); but my placing him in the third rank was based more upon his
skill as a writer of sonnets (see, for instance, "New England") and his
crisis poem "The Man against the Sky." (But even I wouldn't try to
defend his long Arthurian poems . . .)
>: Honorable Mentions:
>Robert Fitzgerald
>
>I have to agree with you here, however. I stumbled across an
>anthology completely by accident and enjoyed it immensely. Neile
>Graham was kind enough, in response to a query about Fitzgerald,
>to mail me an article about him. But other than the anthology
>and the article, I had seen no other reference to him (mind you,
>I don't read _about_ poetry much).
Fitzgerald stands in the first rank of English-language translators of
the classics (with, say, Gavin Douglas, Arthur Golding, George Chapman,
Dryden and Pope); but he is also a fine writer of original verse, and
I especially admire his 1943 collection _A Wreath for the Sea_. You
still don't see him in the standard anthologies, though . . .
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
--Allan Burns
AD...@psuvm.psu.edu
Iacovou) says:
>
>In <93340.12...@psuvm.psu.edu> <AD...@psuvm.psu.edu> writes:
>
>>Overrated: Edgar Allan Poe, William Carlos Williams, E. E. Cummings,
>>John Berryman, Robert Lowell, Denise Levertov, Allen Ginsberg, Adrienne
>>Rich
>
> Now, more some disagreement, WHAT!!! William Carlos Williams, E. E. Cummings
> and Allen Ginsberg are overrated?? Allen Ginsberg's poetry forged a
> generation and then some. What makes you say he is overrated?
Well, to provoke three exclamation points (not to mention caps), they
must indeed be rated fairly highly, at least by some, eh?
Since you specify Ginsberg, I'll just try to answer for my ranking of him.
First off, I did not write that any of these poets were not good or not
worth reading. I merely grouped them as poets whom I felt had
reputations greater than my experience of reading them could really
support. They didn't seem to me to belong in my third class, and I wanted
to set them off from the more obscure poets in my "honorable mention"
category.
Now, Ginsberg: he was born in 1926, the same year as A. R. Ammons and
James Merrill and one year before John Ashbery. While this isn't really
his fault, what it suggests to me is that at the same time Ginsberg
was becoming a cult figure and Beat guru, the other three were writing
great poetry and slowly building lasting reputations. The fact that
Ginsberg's name still rings more bells for the popular imagination
concerns me not at all--nor does the fact that his work has spawned many
second-rate imitators. I think I have good reasons for believing Ginsberg's
poetry, though it will always have a good deal of historical significance,
will not stand, as they say, "the test of time" so well as that of some
of his contemporaries. It is the discrepancy between what one might call
his "popularity" and at least my estimation of his achievement that leads me
to call him overrated. I can only suggest that one might read him and
his exact contempraries (who also include O'Hara and Snodgrass) and
decide for one's self.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
--Allan Burns
Rebecca Leann Smit Crowley
: In article <2e02sl$9...@usenet.pa.dec.com>, rcro...@hildy.zso.dec.com ("Rebecca
: Leann Smit Crowley") says:
: Absolutely. He's taken for granted today as the writer of several
: memorable but uncomplicated anthology pieces ("Luke Havergal," "Richard
: Cory"); but my placing him in the third rank was based more upon his
: skill as a writer of sonnets (see, for instance, "New England") and his
: crisis poem "The Man against the Sky." (But even I wouldn't try to
: defend his long Arthurian poems . . .)
I have a collection of Edwin Arlington Robinson at home because
I like the sonnets myself. I just wouldn't place him that high
in the hierarchy. I *like* them; I do not consider them great.
Another poster asks, am I a poet? Where poet is defined as one
who writes poetry, yes. I am a poet. I don't write much -- not
more than a half dozen sonnets, a villanelle or two and a few
other odds and ends a year -- and I am not published.
--
Rebecca Crowley standard disclaimers apply rcro...@zso.dec.com
Live the questions now. Perhaps you will then gradually, without
noticing it, live along some distant day into the answer. -- Rilke
sayan bhattacharyya
Matthias Weber <we...@fourier.msri.org> wrote:
>|>
>|> German: Stefan George, Rainer Maria Rilke, Paul Celan
>|> French: Paul Valery, Guillaume Apollonaire, Rene Char
>|> Russian: Alexander Blok, Anna Ahkmatova, Boris Pasternak
>
>Russian: Arsenij Tarkowskij, Ossip Mandelstam
>Italian: Giuseppe Ungaretti, Giacomo Leopardi
>Portugeese: Fernando Pessoa
>
Bengali: Jibonanondo Das, Bishnu De' , Shonkho Ghosh
I didn't include Tagore above as he strictly cannot be
called 20th century -- he straddles both the nineteenth
and the twentieth. His best work was done in this century,
of course.
-Sayan Bhattacharyya.
Douglas Clark
I would put Ginsberg before Ammons, N [Merrill] and AShbery.
They are nullities. But then I am not American. I dont go
for Whitman and Dickinson.
Douglas Clark
Let's drink to Sergei Esenin.
Thomas S Listmann
Of poets not in English: Robert Desnos "I have dreamed of you
so much that you have lost your reality..." (Michael Benedict's
translation).
Tom
sometimes a Wombat
> AD...@psuvm.psu.edu wrote:
> >
> > Overrated: Edgar Allan Poe, William Carlos Williams, E. E. Cummings,
> > John Berryman, Robert Lowell, Denise Levertov, Allen Ginsberg, Adrienne
> > Rich
>
> is so overrated that several generations of american (u.s.) and
> non-american poets consider his work to be, with pound and frost, the most
> important poetic work produced by america during the 20th century.
Much to the detriment of American Poetry.
I agree with the original poster -- whose name was writ on ether, and
so lost -- on all except Cummings, who I find rated about right, or
perhaps a shade under. I find Williams' rating pernicious.
> are you a poet?
<shuffles feet> Er. Yes.
Larry "From out of the closet" Hammer
--
L...@physics.arizona.edu \ Hidden harmony is better than manifest.
GEnie: LARRY.HAMMER \ -- Heraclitus, #47
Danny Iacovou
>> Now, more some disagreement, WHAT!!! William Carlos Williams, E. E. Cummings
>> and Allen Ginsberg are overrated?? Allen Ginsberg's poetry forged a
>> generation and then some. What makes you say he is overrated?
>Well, to provoke three exclamation points (not to mention caps), they
sorry, slip of the finger, it'll never happen again
>must indeed be rated fairly highly, at least by some, eh?
>Since you specify Ginsberg, I'll just try to answer for my ranking of him.
>his fault, what it suggests to me is that at the same time Ginsberg
>was becoming a cult figure and Beat guru, the other three were writing
>great poetry and slowly building lasting reputations. The fact that
>Ginsberg's name still rings more bells for the popular imagination
this is a contridiction right?
>concerns me not at all--nor does the fact that his work has spawned many
>second-rate imitators. I think I have good reasons for believing Ginsberg's
>poetry, though it will always have a good deal of historical significance,
>will not stand, as they say, "the test of time" so well as that of some
>of his contemporaries. It is the discrepancy between what one might call
>his "popularity" and at least my estimation of his achievement that leads me
>to call him overrated. I can only suggest that one might read him and
>his exact contempraries (who also include O'Hara and Snodgrass) and
>decide for one's self.
I am not saying that Ginsberg is better than any particular poet (of course
Dickenson is an exception - but that is in another thread). What I am
saying is that going back to Arnold, Ginsberg accomplishes what he sets out
to do. I will even take this on step further, and say that since Ginsberg
did spawn platoons of "second-rate imitators" he obviously affected the
people in ways that an O'hara never did - it is not Ginsberg's fault
if his imitators were second-rate.
Anyway, I just wanted to say that "overrated" was not a way to categorize
Ginsberg's poetry, if anything "underrated" would be appropriate.
AD...@psuvm.psu.edu
ksbr...@quads.uchicago.edu (kevin sawad brooks) says:
>
>>AD...@psuvm.psu.edu wrote:
>>: America's Best Poets (*my* hierarchy)
>>
>> . . ( lots of interesting stuff deleted )
>>
>>: Overrated: Edgar Allan Poe, William Carlos Williams, E. E. Cummings,
>>: John Berryman, Robert Lowell, Denise Levertov, Allen Ginsberg, Adrienne
>>: Rich
>>
>>I'd agree with all of those.
>
>what are you talking about? are you crazy? i suppose williams, for example,
>is so overrated that several generations of american (u.s.) and
>non-american poets consider his work to be, with pound and frost, the most
>important poetic work produced by america during the 20th century.
I realize these questions aren't directly addressed to me; but since I
started this . . .
Look: no one denies Williams is important or that he has been a major
influence. I placed him among the "overrated" because I don't believe
he stands up against his finest contemporaries, Frost, Stevens,
and Eliot--though many today would want to claim otherwise. What
seems to me to separate Williams from these others is this: whereas they
created great poems, Williams "merely" created a new manner of writing
poems. When I survey his work, I don't see poems that I would be
tempted to place alongside the best work of the past (Donne, Keats, etc.);
but I do see such poems in the oeuvres of the other three. And that
Williams has been a major influence does not in itself prove much to me.
An influence on whom? I don't see great poems being written under his
influence. What I see are evasions--that is poets taking up Williams'
easier style, a style that allows them to avoid confrontations with
the metrical mastery of Frost or with the stylistic felicities and
philosophical profundities of Eliot and Stevens. One might want to
argue that Williams demands of readers a new way of judging what
poetry is and what it does; I think this is true, in fact. But the
gains here don't compensate for the losses, as far as I am concerned.
Others may disagree; that is their business.
Let me add that if the poetry workshops have made Williams a demi-god,
Emerson, Whitman, Dickinson, Stevens, etc. never attended one and
did quite fine without.
>are you a poet?
What does this question really mean and what does it hide? (To my
ears--and I may be mistaken--it hides "I am a poet. Only I am fit to
judge. You just back off." Or something like that.)
Now does it mean:
a) Are you a professional poet? Do you earn most of your income by
selling books of poetry or by teaching poetry in schools?
or
b) Do you write a lot of poetry, as a student or an amateur?
or
c) Have you ever tried your hand at poetry? Are you familiar with
poetic technique and the history of poetry?
All of these are very different things. But the bottom line is this:
to make critical judgments about poetry, you don't have to write it.
Writing it can certainly help you to judge better; but, there's no
guarantee that the better a poet you are the better a critic you will be.
Some great poets have been extraordinary critics (Dryden, Dr. Johnson,
Coleridge, Eliot), but many have been lousy critics. I gave an example
in an earlier post of a judgment by Frost that few will share. Many
times how a poet judges and who he or she likes depends upon from whom
his or her own poetry is derivative.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
--Allan Burns
AD...@psuvm.psu.edu
Leann Smit Crowley") says:
>
>AD...@psuvm.psu.edu wrote:
>: In article <2e02sl$9...@usenet.pa.dec.com>, rcro...@hildy.zso.dec.com
>("Rebecca
>: Leann Smit Crowley") says:
>: >Are you serious?
>
>: Absolutely. He's taken for granted today as the writer of several
>: memorable but uncomplicated anthology pieces ("Luke Havergal," "Richard
>: Cory"); but my placing him in the third rank was based more upon his
>: skill as a writer of sonnets (see, for instance, "New England") and his
>: crisis poem "The Man against the Sky." (But even I wouldn't try to
>: defend his long Arthurian poems . . .)
>
>I have a collection of Edwin Arlington Robinson at home because
>I like the sonnets myself. I just wouldn't place him that high
>in the hierarchy. I *like* them; I do not consider them great.
You can certainly rank him lower. I would probably even agree he's
"the least" of those I placed in the third rank. But do consider,
too, his place in the history of American poetry. At the time he
rose to prominence in the 1890s, pickings were pretty slim. The
major turn-of-the-century poets were such as Sidney Lanier and
William Vaughan Moody--not exactly titans. Robinson, pessimist
though he was, helped turn the eyes of American poets back to
Emerson and Whitman. The influence he exerted on Frost alone is
immense. I imagine the history of 20th C Am poetry may have
been quite different without him. So a few points for his
special historical importance have been factored in; but if you
aren't convinced by the poems themselves, well . . . there it is.
(But do at least take a look at the gap in the anthologies between
Dickinson and Robinson and ponder his role a bit.)
Oh, I have also thought, during the course of these discussions,
of several poets I overlooked in my original "hierarchy." I might
place Robinson Jeffers as high as the third rank, and George Santayana
and Langston Hughes prbobably deserve to be mentioned. I'll skip
additions to the lower ranks, as I don't want the smoke starting to
rise around here to turn suddenly into flames . . .
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
--Allan Burns
kevin sawad brooks
uh? neither baudelaire, nor mallarme, nor holderlin wrote poetry in english.
Mujtaba Ghouse
I'd like to nominate perhaps the greatest Urdu poet of this century: Iqbal.
I'd also like to quibble with Sayan:
bhat...@quip.eecs.umich.edu (sayan bhattacharyya) writes:
>>
>Bengali: Jibonanondo Das, Bishnu De' , Shonkho Ghosh
>I didn't include Tagore above as he strictly cannot be
>called 20th century -- he straddles both the nineteenth
>and the twentieth. His best work was done in this century,
>of course.
But he is a twentieth century poet, no? (Even if he is also
of the 19th C.)
>-Sayan Bhattacharyya.
-Mujtaba Ghouse
AD...@psuvm.psu.edu
says:
>
>I would put Ginsberg before Ammons, N [Merrill] and AShbery.
>They are nullities. But then I am not American. I dont go
>for Whitman and Dickinson.
Ah. And will the next Olympian pronouncement be that you
"don't go for" Shakespeare and Milton either?
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
--Allan Burns
AD...@psuvm.psu.edu
Iacovou) says:
>
>In <93341.13...@psuvm.psu.edu> <AD...@psuvm.psu.edu> writes:
>
>
>>Since you specify Ginsberg, I'll just try to answer for my ranking of him.
>
>>his fault, what it suggests to me is that at the same time Ginsberg
>>was becoming a cult figure and Beat guru, the other three were writing
>>great poetry and slowly building lasting reputations. The fact that
>>Ginsberg's name still rings more bells for the popular imagination
>
> this is a contridiction right?
Sorry, no. Edna St. Vincent Millay still lingers in the popular
imagination; George Herbert has a lasting reputation. See a difference?
> Anyway, I just wanted to say that "overrated" was not a way to categorize
> Ginsberg's poetry, if anything "underrated" would be appropriate.
Given how many "non-specialists" have read or at least heard of Ginsberg
by comparison with certain others, I can't agree.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
--Allan Burns
AD...@psuvm.psu.edu
ksbr...@ellis.uchicago.edu (kevin sawad brooks) says:
>
>In article <93341.11...@psuvm.psu.edu> <AD...@psuvm.psu.edu> writes:
>>In article <1993Dec7.0...@midway.uchicago.edu>,
>>ksbr...@quads.uchicago.edu (kevin sawad brooks) says:
>>>
>>>holderlin? -- just another name.
>>>
>>>was baudelaire an oversight? what about mallarme? oh, they are only
>>>the most seminal for modernism.
>>
>>Excuse me, but this thread was devoted to great *20th C* poets in
>>languages other than English. A real oversight may have been the
>>Russian poet Hodasevich.
>
*20th C* *20th C* *20th C*
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
--Allan Burns
Steven Chung
#
# Fitzgerald stands in the first rank of English-language translators of
# the classics (with, say, Gavin Douglas, Arthur Golding, George Chapman,
# Dryden and Pope);
I tried to let this one pass, honest. :)
Seriously, which of his translations are you referring to here? As
translations, I find at least his Homer and Virgil not terribly faithful;
as selfstanding works they are hardly compelling, IMO.
--
s...@nwu.edu | 'If they knew what they liked, they wouldn't
| be living in Pittsburgh.'
AD...@psuvm.psu.edu
>
>In article <93341.11...@psuvm.psu.edu>, <AD...@psuvm.psu.edu> wrote:
>#
># Fitzgerald stands in the first rank of English-language translators of
># the classics (with, say, Gavin Douglas, Arthur Golding, George Chapman,
># Dryden and Pope);
>
>I tried to let this one pass, honest. :)
>Seriously, which of his translations are you referring to here? As
>translations, I find at least his Homer and Virgil not terribly faithful;
And the translations by the others I cited are "faithful"? Hardly.
Go compare the famous "Night Scene" from Pope's _Iliad_ translation with
that from Fitzgerald's; then consult the "most faithful" translation you
know. Douglas' rendering of Virgil (_Eneados_) is often said to be
the greatest verse translation of them all--and he incorporates the
work of commentators right into his translation, so that it's something
like 40% longer than the original. Compared to his predecessors,
Fitzgerald is almost fanatically literal. (But that alone is hardly
the principal criterion for a successful translation.)
>as selfstanding works they are hardly compelling, IMO.
You're entitled to your opinions. But many of the more astute readers,
critics, and translators of our time disagree.
Allow me also to provide here a fine specimen of Fitzgerald's original
verse that caught my eye just the other day:
. . . black seas heavy-shouldered
Plunging on sand . . .
(Note how the two trochees that conclude the first line and the
immensely powerful one that begins the second mimetically enact
the crash of the waves against the shore. His craftsmanship was
indeed admirable.)
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
--Allan Burns
Keith Morgan
Allan Burns wrote:
Fitzgerald stands in the first rank of
English-language translators of the classics (with,
say, Gavin Douglas, Arthur Golding, George Chapman,
Dryden and Pope);
Steven Chung replies:
I tried to let this one pass, honest. :)
Seriously, which of his translations are you referring to
here? As translations, I find at least his Homer and Virgil
not terribly faithful; as selfstanding works they are hardly
compelling, IMO.
Faithful is another question but I certainly consider Fitzgerald's
Homer to much more compelling than the other standard modern
renderings. I think my attraction is based on Fitzgerald's poetic
skills which he brings out of the Greek. If I wanted a faithful (or
more faithful, this really is a relative question) I would go back to
Lattimore and his admirable Eisenhowerian translation.
Keith
--
Keith Morgan
kamo...@mit.edu
Andrew Dinn
I've been in Germany for a week otherwise I would have stepped into
the debate earlier. Of course my vote goes for Uncle Ezray** with Emily
Dickinson a close second but Allan Burns has been working his charms
on me and I am becoming a Stevens addict. I agree with Vance that
Pound's best work is his Propertius homage, his translations plus
parts of the Cantos but I would also include the Hugh Selwyn Mauberley
poems. They do indeed sum up a particular era (as Pound says in his
footnote to the collected poems), for example:
The world demanded an image
Of its accelerated grimace
Something for the modern stage
Not at any rate an Attic grace
**perhaps Allan Burns doesn't consider Pound to be an *American* poet.
Apropos Williams's influence, I always thought Williams's style came
from his early contact with Pound (at university and in correspondence
when Pound was first in Europe). Pound's writings from 1908 onwards
derided the conventions of Edwardian English poetry and articulated
the principles of Modernist poetry which both Williams and Eliot
seemed later to have adopted. I always think of them as disciples who
continued to employ one of Pound's voices long after he went on to
other things.
Andrew Dinn
-----------
there is no map / and a compass / wouldn't help at all
Philip Nikolayev
exx...@mail.bath.ac.uk (Douglas Clark) writes:
> Let's drink to Sergei Esenin.
He did drink himself to death.
AD...@psuvm.psu.edu
Dinn) says:
>
>**perhaps Allan Burns doesn't consider Pound to be an *American* poet.
Au contraire. The whole project of _The Cantos_ is a bit too
like that of _Leaves of Grass_ for one to say il miglior fabbro
ever quite escaped his American origins. Succinctly: I think at
his best (and I'm writing here of lines, not poems), Pound is
as good as any American poet; but one really has to search through
the ruins to find the gems. (What is that line of his about gold
glittering in the gloom?) Surveyed from a distance, the whole
prospect looks, to me at least, a little bleak.
>Apropos Williams's influence, I always thought Williams's style came
>from his early contact with Pound (at university and in correspondence
>when Pound was first in Europe). Pound's writings from 1908 onwards
>derided the conventions of Edwardian English poetry and articulated
>the principles of Modernist poetry which both Williams and Eliot
>seemed later to have adopted. I always think of them as disciples who
>continued to employ one of Pound's voices long after he went on to
>other things.
I seem to recall reading somewhere about Pound's being astounded
and a little vexed at Eliot's having "modernized himself." Eliot,
I think, learned more from French poets such as LaForgue than
directly from Pound (who was modernized with assistance from
Ford and Hulme). I suspect the influences one might be able
to trace here are more reciprocal than you allow. Pound must
have picked something up while he edited "The Waste Land" that
figured in the later Cantos (which means most of them). They did,
though, "grow apart"--Pound in the asylum, Eliot walking around,
as Wyndham Lewis cracked, "disguised as Westminster Abbey."
A strong case can certainly be made for Pound's influence on
Williams, though the good doctor's obsession with tidy, clean
words and a distinctly American poetic certainly marks an
important swerve away from Pound's internationalism and mythological
obscurantism.
And then there is Hart Crane, who responded to "the challenge of
internationalism" in his own way . . .
And then there is Stevens, whose feelings about Eliot, at least,
are summarized in "The Creation of Sounds." (He claimed he
didn't read E & P often, as he didn't want to pick up any of
their mannerisims--which doesn't mean he didn't have a few of
his own . . .)
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
--Allan Burns