DAMAGED ROMANTIC DAY IN THE MODERNIST NEIGHBORHOOD
JAS Carter
<artemu...@worldnet.att.net> spake thus:
> The little guy with a lot of mojo who lives across the street, Mister
>Damaged Romantic, was writing one of those well-identified items that so
>often have lines that don't quite reach the margins. He stopped by to
>show me the text in question. Naturally, I had to say that I thought I
>thought I knew what it was, but not much else about what he thought he
>was doing with it....much less bring up all the stereotypes by free
>association and begin the talking cure that his endeavors seemed to
>require.
>
> He said that was not what mattered, what mattered was what he was
>expressing about his feelings.
If that is modernism, I'm not a modernist, despite claims to the
contrary.
> I asked him why his feelings seemed to require a particular textual
>oddity, ie, some lines not quite reaching the margins
>
>and,
> indeed,
> some being
> rather oddly suspended in an evocative void
>in the middle of
> nowhere.
>
> He said that was the way things were. Any other way of writing would
>have too many constraints and conventions to contend with...whereas
If that is modernism, I'm not a modernist, despite claims to the
contrary.
> What
> he wanted
> was the pure meaning
> hanging
> around in his soul....
>
> I said that I really could not help him,
> BUT
> he might want to look at a dictionary or reflect on the Wisdom of the
>Nobel Prize Committee which would someday no doubt reward -- if not him
>-- then somebody very much like him.
>
> So he took his heavy mojo and went away. dude. man.
I've yet to run across a poet who speaks to me of their "poetic souls"
or their "hearts" (in a non-medical context).
If that's a facet of modernism, I do not know any (poetry writing)
modernists.
I have run across many webtv users who think it, though, so is webtv a
modernist genre? ;)
Julie Carter
--
ICQ: 1265510
Sunbeam the Deacon
Damaged Romantic, was writing one of those well-identified items that so
often have lines that don't quite reach the margins. He stopped by to
show me the text in question. Naturally, I had to say that I thought I
thought I knew what it was, but not much else about what he thought he
was doing with it....much less bring up all the stereotypes by free
association and begin the talking cure that his endeavors seemed to
require.
He said that was not what mattered, what mattered was what he was
expressing about his feelings.
I asked him why his feelings seemed to require a particular textual
oddity, ie, some lines not quite reaching the margins
and,
indeed,
some being
rather oddly suspended in an evocative void
in the middle of
nowhere.
He said that was the way things were. Any other way of writing would
have too many constraints and conventions to contend with...whereas
What
he wanted
was the pure meaning
hanging
around in his soul....
I said that I really could not help him,
BUT
he might want to look at a dictionary or reflect on the Wisdom of the
Nobel Prize Committee which would someday no doubt reward -- if not him
-- then somebody very much like him.
So he took his heavy mojo and went away. dude. man.
--
Then Pallas breath'd in Tydeus' sonne --
to render whom supreame
To all the Greekes at all his parts she cast a hoter beame
On his high mind, his body fild with much superior might
And made his compleate armor cast a farre more complete light.
(Chapman's Homer: Iliad, Fifth Book, first lines)
............Pete
Sunbeam the Deacon
JAS Carter wrote:
>
> On Wed, 12 Jan 2000 17:34:05 -0500, in misc.writing Sunbeam the Deacon
> <artemu...@worldnet.att.net> spake thus:
>
> > The little guy with a lot of mojo who lives across the street, Mister
> >Damaged Romantic, was writing one of those well-identified items that so
> >often have lines that don't quite reach the margins. He stopped by to
> >show me the text in question. Naturally, I had to say that I thought I
> >thought I knew what it was, but not much else about what he thought he
> >was doing with it....much less bring up all the stereotypes by free
> >association and begin the talking cure that his endeavors seemed to
> >require.
> >
> > He said that was not what mattered, what mattered was what he was
> >expressing about his feelings.
>
> If that is modernism, I'm not a modernist, despite claims to the
> contrary.
Quite true...but see below.
>
> > I asked him why his feelings seemed to require a particular textual
> >oddity, ie, some lines not quite reaching the margins
> >
> >and,
> > indeed,
> > some being
> > rather oddly suspended in an evocative void
> >in the middle of
> > nowhere.
> >
> > He said that was the way things were. Any other way of writing would
> >have too many constraints and conventions to contend with...whereas
>
> If that is modernism, I'm not a modernist, despite claims to the
> contrary.
>
No, you're right....that's not modernism. Modernism will almost
certainly pop up in your formulation of how to answer this damaged
Romantic who wants to do something with his text.
> > What
> > he wanted
> > was the pure meaning
> > hanging
> > around in his soul....
> >
> > I said that I really could not help him,
> > BUT
> > he might want to look at a dictionary or reflect on the Wisdom of the
> >Nobel Prize Committee which would someday no doubt reward -- if not him
> >-- then somebody very much like him.
> >
> > So he took his heavy mojo and went away. dude. man.
>
> I've yet to run across a poet who speaks to me of their "poetic souls"
> or their "hearts" (in a non-medical context).
>
> If that's a facet of modernism, I do not know any (poetry writing)
> modernists.
>
> I have run across many webtv users who think it, though, so is webtv a
> modernist genre? ;)
>
>
Good question. I've no idea. But what about this:
How would you answer the damaged Romantic who thinks his poem is
supposed to express what is in his soul?
I'm warning you, this is a trick question, because I really think you
will have a hard time formulating an answer to the damaged Romantic that
is not demonstrably Modernist in many ways.
Peter Hickman
The Chocolate Lady wrote:
> On Wed, 12 Jan 2000 17:34:05 -0500 during the misc.writing Community
> News Flash, Sunbeam the Deacon <artemu...@worldnet.att.net>
> reported:
>
> > The little guy with a lot of mojo who lives across the street, Mister
> >Damaged Romantic, was writing one of those well-identified items that so
> >often have lines that don't quite reach the margins.
>
> Trying to write poetry like a modernist is an interesting exercise.
> However, in this, one should remember that not all modernist poets
> wrote with lines that "don't quite reach the margins". This is also
> not the "be all and end all" of Pound's meaning when he said to "make
> it new".
Well, but this is the question: how do we know the Damaged Romantic is or
isn't writing Modernist or non-Modernist poems?
Sooner or later one of you people is going to slip up and forget to pretend
that I have no idea what I'm talking about and actually say something about
poetry these days.
And I don't think Romantics are inferior, I just think that if we held them
to high standards they could acheive things just like anyone else.
So quit coddling and pandering to the Romantics. They aren't inferior to
you, you just think they are because you never say anything about them.
You never can tell....................................................Pete
JAS Carter
(The Chocolate Lady) spake thus:
>> The little guy with a lot of mojo who lives across the street, Mister
>>Damaged Romantic, was writing one of those well-identified items that so
>>often have lines that don't quite reach the margins.
>
>Trying to write poetry like a modernist is an interesting exercise.
>However, in this, one should remember that not all modernist poets
>wrote with lines that "don't quite reach the margins". This is also
>not the "be all and end all" of Pound's meaning when he said to "make
>it new".
>
>(Some Modernist poets even wrote poems that <gasp> rhymed!)
Say it ain't so!
Really, though. I have no idea what is being used as the definition
of "Modernism." Can someone point me to a definition?
(I write poetry that *gasp* rhymes, too. I write sonnets and dizains,
especially. Lovely stuff, sonnets and dizains (though maybe not mine
so much)).
Sunbeam the Deacon
JAS Carter wrote:
>
> On Thu, 13 Jan 2000 13:18:55 GMT, in misc.writing dav...@jdc.org.il
> (The Chocolate Lady) spake thus:
>
> >> The little guy with a lot of mojo who lives across the street, Mister
> >>Damaged Romantic, was writing one of those well-identified items that so
> >>often have lines that don't quite reach the margins.
> >
> >Trying to write poetry like a modernist is an interesting exercise.
> >However, in this, one should remember that not all modernist poets
> >wrote with lines that "don't quite reach the margins". This is also
> >not the "be all and end all" of Pound's meaning when he said to "make
> >it new".
> >
> >(Some Modernist poets even wrote poems that <gasp> rhymed!)
>
> Say it ain't so!
>
> Really, though. I have no idea what is being used as the definition
> of "Modernism." Can someone point me to a definition?
>
Well, I certainly can't. That would be cheating. But we do have some
hints floating around in the newgroup:
1) Modernism has been dead for 50 years (says Marty)
2) Pete doesn't know what it is (says Marty)
3) You don't know what it is, but you are sure that it has nothing to
do with what you do to poetry every day
4) and Marty also says it has nothing to do with poetry as it is delt
with these days and yet he seems to know what it is (or let's hope so
anyway)
Usenet Poster Boy
jsgo...@yahoo.com (JAS Carter) writes:
[snip]
> Really, though. I have no idea what is being used as the definition
> of "Modernism." Can someone point me to a definition?
>
http://www.modcult.brown.edu/people/Scholes/modlist/General.html
Doesn't contain *a* definition, because there isn't really a single
definition.
One way of defining modernism is chronologically. It is an art
movement that started in the 1890s, usually associated with the
Impressionists, and died in the late 1930s, usually associated with
the start of WW-II.
You can make a case for both an earlier start and a later finish, but
1890-1940 pretty much covers it.
Jerry Kindall
<usenet...@fogey.com> wrote:
I'm a bit bemused that something called "modern" can be so old...
--
Jerry Kindall <mailto:kin...@mail.manual.com> Technical Writing, etc.
Manual Labor <http://www.manual.com/> We Wrote the Book!
Your hands and feet are mangoes; you're gonna be a genius anyway...
JAS Carter
<artemu...@worldnet.att.net> spake thus:
> 3) You don't know what it is, but you are sure that it has nothing to
>do with what you do to poetry every day
I've never said that. I've said that I cannot be accused of being a
Modernist by intent, since I don't know what it is.
If it is, as defined by my dictionary, a rejection of the old style in
favor of the new, then it is not what I believe in.
JAS Carter
<usenet...@fogey.com> spake thus:
>> Really, though. I have no idea what is being used as the definition
>> of "Modernism." Can someone point me to a definition?
>
>http://www.modcult.brown.edu/people/Scholes/modlist/General.html
>
>Doesn't contain *a* definition, because there isn't really a single
>definition.
>
>One way of defining modernism is chronologically. It is an art
>movement that started in the 1890s, usually associated with the
>Impressionists, and died in the late 1930s, usually associated with
>the start of WW-II.
>
>You can make a case for both an earlier start and a later finish, but
>1890-1940 pretty much covers it.
This is pretty irritating. I'm being "accused" of being something
that no one can define, and then told that if those same people can't
define poetry that it's the fault of poetry.
I'm beginning to believe that it's just a matter of a small group of
people who can't define *anything.*
Peter Hickman
JAS Carter wrote:
So you don't believe in ( and certainly do not practise) rejecting the old
style (which is what?) in favor of the new (which is what?). This appears to be
an aesthetic and/or generic judgement of some kind. It might be interesting to
clarify the judgement. For example:
What are these new and old styles? Do they have generic definitions? Do
these relate to some overall aesthetics?
You never can tell.......................................Pete
Peter Hickman
JAS Carter wrote:
> On 13 Jan 2000 22:07:54 -0800, in misc.writing Usenet Poster Boy
> <usenet...@fogey.com> spake thus:
>
> >> Really, though. I have no idea what is being used as the definition
> >> of "Modernism." Can someone point me to a definition?
> >
> >http://www.modcult.brown.edu/people/Scholes/modlist/General.html
> >
> >Doesn't contain *a* definition, because there isn't really a single
> >definition.
> >
> >One way of defining modernism is chronologically. It is an art
> >movement that started in the 1890s, usually associated with the
> >Impressionists, and died in the late 1930s, usually associated with
> >the start of WW-II.
> >
> >You can make a case for both an earlier start and a later finish, but
> >1890-1940 pretty much covers it.
>
> This is pretty irritating. I'm being "accused" of being something
> that no one can define, and then told that if those same people can't
> define poetry that it's the fault of poetry.
Exactly. I'm accusing poets these days of being more or less Modernist
in their evaluations of genre and their whole aesthetic scheme and yet
apparently not being aware of it. It is an extreme case of the blind (ie,
poets who don't have much idea where their more or less unconscious
aesthetic comes from or what it implies) leading the blind (readers of
poems who are even more in the dark about poetics and aesthetics).
>
> I'm beginning to believe that it's just a matter of a small group of
> people who can't define *anything.*
Indeed it is. These people are called poets.
You never can tell............................................Pete
Usenet Poster Boy
jsgo...@yahoo.com (JAS Carter) writes:
> On 13 Jan 2000 22:07:54 -0800, in misc.writing Usenet Poster Boy
> <usenet...@fogey.com> spake thus:
>
> >> Really, though. I have no idea what is being used as the definition
> >> of "Modernism." Can someone point me to a definition?
> >
> >http://www.modcult.brown.edu/people/Scholes/modlist/General.html
> >
> >Doesn't contain *a* definition, because there isn't really a single
> >definition.
> >
> >One way of defining modernism is chronologically. It is an art
> >movement that started in the 1890s, usually associated with the
> >Impressionists, and died in the late 1930s, usually associated with
> >the start of WW-II.
> >
> >You can make a case for both an earlier start and a later finish, but
> >1890-1940 pretty much covers it.
>
> This is pretty irritating. I'm being "accused" of being something
> that no one can define, and then told that if those same people can't
> define poetry that it's the fault of poetry.
>
You are being 'victimized' by an old rhetorical trick. The technique
is to produce a vague label, use innuendo or indefensible assertion
to give the label a negative connotation, and then condemn people by
guilt-by-association. It is faulty logic but effective rhetoric.
> I'm beginning to believe that it's just a matter of a small group of
> people who can't define *anything.*
>
Yes.
BTW, the web site will point you at various valid definitions of
"Modernism." The problem with *a* definition is that the definition
varies somewhat by medium, and because the Modernists liked to claim
anyone who was breaking the mold as a Modernist, even if the
individual wasn't breaking the mold for Modernist reasons.
Marty
Usenet Poster Boy
Jerry Kindall <kin...@mail.manual.com> writes:
> In article <73so01n...@shell3.ba.best.com>, Usenet Poster Boy
> <usenet...@fogey.com> wrote:
[snip]
> > You can make a case for both an earlier start and a later finish, but
> > 1890-1940 pretty much covers it.
>
> I'm a bit bemused that something called "modern" can be so old...
>
It was replaced, of course, by 'post-modernism', but that's dead and
no one can come up with a replacement name for the current art
movements that isn't cumbersome but that actually continues the naming
scheme.
I suppose we'll recycle 'naive' or 'primitive' in some form,
eventually.
Marty
Peter Hickman
Usenet Poster Boy wrote:
> jsgo...@yahoo.com (JAS Carter) writes:
>
> > On 13 Jan 2000 22:07:54 -0800, in misc.writing Usenet Poster Boy
> > <usenet...@fogey.com> spake thus:
> >
> > >> Really, though. I have no idea what is being used as the definition
> > >> of "Modernism." Can someone point me to a definition?
> > >
> > >http://www.modcult.brown.edu/people/Scholes/modlist/General.html
> > >
> > >Doesn't contain *a* definition, because there isn't really a single
> > >definition.
> > >
> > >One way of defining modernism is chronologically. It is an art
> > >movement that started in the 1890s, usually associated with the
> > >Impressionists, and died in the late 1930s, usually associated with
> > >the start of WW-II.
> > >
> > >You can make a case for both an earlier start and a later finish, but
> > >1890-1940 pretty much covers it.
> >
> > This is pretty irritating. I'm being "accused" of being something
> > that no one can define, and then told that if those same people can't
> > define poetry that it's the fault of poetry.
> >
>
> You are being 'victimized' by an old rhetorical trick. The technique
> is to produce a vague label, use innuendo or indefensible assertion
> to give the label a negative connotation, and then condemn people by
> guilt-by-association. It is faulty logic but effective rhetoric.
And the logical thing to do would be what? Is Modernism really a vague
label or are people like Marty simply unaware that Modernism appears to be
(for example) still the aesthetic set of evaluations (of such things as
genres) that governs (however unconsciously) Modern English Poetry?
As far as I can see, the illogical thing to do is to deny that Modernism
is still the main aesthetic for Modern English Poetry.
> > I'm beginning to believe that it's just a matter of a small group of
> > people who can't define *anything.*
> >
>
> Yes.
>
> BTW, the web site will point you at various valid definitions of
> "Modernism." The problem with *a* definition is that the definition
> varies somewhat by medium, and because the Modernists liked to claim
> anyone who was breaking the mold as a Modernist, even if the
> individual wasn't breaking the mold for Modernist reasons.
Well, we're getting closer to something, aren't we? There is apparently
some sort of activity called "breaking the mold for Modernist
reasons"...Eventually it will emerge that the Modernist reasons are aesthetic
reasons of some sort and that they have some relation (suspiciously like
those of non-Modern Modern English Poetry) to the genres of poetry.
You never can tell..........................................Pete
JAS Carter
<Peter....@rtp.ppdi.com> spake thus:
>> > 3) You don't know what it is, but you are sure that it has nothing to
>> >do with what you do to poetry every day
>>
>> I've never said that. I've said that I cannot be accused of being a
>> Modernist by intent, since I don't know what it is.
>>
>> If it is, as defined by my dictionary, a rejection of the old style in
>> favor of the new, then it is not what I believe in.
>
> So you don't believe in ( and certainly do not practise) rejecting the old
>style (which is what?) in favor of the new (which is what?).
I make no effort to write in any approved, disapproved, literary,
nonliterary, archaic, new, or revolutionary styles.
I admire formalism.
>This appears to be an aesthetic and/or generic judgement of some kind.
It is a personal opinion, yes.
>It might be interesting to clarify the judgement. For example:
>
> What are these new and old styles?
New: free verse, old: formalism
I love free verse, but I prefer formalism. I enjoy seeing what
someone can come up with when they have constraints put upon them.
New: nonrhymed (though blank verse has certainly been around for a
loooong time) old: rhymed
This one isn't a very good distinction, since many people still
believe that if it doesn't rhyme it isn't poetry. Good rhyming poetry
is sublime; but it is also harder than good non-rhyming poetry.
New: nonmetered, old: metered
Most people, even poets, don't really understand meter, but that's
just because it has lost some of its emphasis.
New: clinical, old: romantic
Not a clear distinction, again, though I would let Spenser get away
with things that I'd find intolerable in a writer today. It may be
his talent that makes him more forgiveable, or it may be that I know
what the prevalent styles were in his day.
It was also more common to see metaphysical poetry in past years. I
enjoy good metaphysical poetry, but it's difficult to do well.
>Do they have generic definitions?
They have definitions. I do not know if you would consider them
"generic" definitions.
>Do these relate to some overall aesthetics?
I don't know. You are the one who says they do. I am the one who
says that I don't know.
JAS Carter
<Peter....@rtp.ppdi.com> spake thus:
>> This is pretty irritating. I'm being "accused" of being something
>> that no one can define, and then told that if those same people can't
>> define poetry that it's the fault of poetry.
>
> Exactly. I'm accusing poets these days of being more or less Modernist
>in their evaluations of genre and their whole aesthetic scheme and yet
>apparently not being aware of it. It is an extreme case of the blind (ie,
>poets who don't have much idea where their more or less unconscious
>aesthetic comes from or what it implies) leading the blind (readers of
>poems who are even more in the dark about poetics and aesthetics).
>
>>
>> I'm beginning to believe that it's just a matter of a small group of
>> people who can't define *anything.*
>
> Indeed it is. These people are called poets.
Define modernism.
Peter Hickman
Usenet Poster Boy wrote:
> Jerry Kindall <kin...@mail.manual.com> writes:
>
> > In article <73so01n...@shell3.ba.best.com>, Usenet Poster Boy
> > <usenet...@fogey.com> wrote:
>
> [snip]
>
> > > You can make a case for both an earlier start and a later finish, but
> > > 1890-1940 pretty much covers it.
> >
> > I'm a bit bemused that something called "modern" can be so old...
> >
>
> It was replaced, of course, by 'post-modernism', but that's dead and
> no one can come up with a replacement name for the current art
> movements that isn't cumbersome but that actually continues the naming
> scheme.
This would seem to leave a very odd gap in the aesthetic chronology that
Marty puts forward:
Modernism 1890 to 1940
Post-Modernism (the term wasn't in circulation much until about 1980...so
1940 to 1980 was what..... Disco?) 1980 til 2000...and now we are all soon to
be naive....again
>
> I suppose we'll recycle 'naive' or 'primitive' in some form,
> eventually.
Recycled from the Earliest Moments of Romanticism?
I have a simpler proposal:
1) The basic aesthetic in all the arts is still Romanticism, especially
in its Modernist form
2) There have been occasional interludes of anti-Romanticism (Symbolism,
Surrealism and the Beatniks spring to mind)
So the basic Chronology is Post-Neo-Classicism/Romanticism/Modernism:
1800 to 2000
with little interludes of some other stuff.
You never can tell...............................Pete
Peter Hickman
JAS Carter wrote:
> <snip>
>
> Define modernism.
The best place to look for the Modernist Aesthetic in a nutshell is T. S.
Eliot's essay on The Individual and Tradition...where he says...:
Tradition is a matter of much wider significance. It cannot be inherited, and if
you want it you
must obtain it by great labour. It involves, in the first place, the
historical sense, which we may call nearly indispensable to anyone who
would continue to be a poet beyond his twenty-fifth year; and the
historical sense involves a perception, not only of the pastness of the
past, but of its presence; the historical sense compels a man to write
not merely with his own generation in his bones, but with a feeling
that the whole of the literature of Europe from Homer and within it the
whole of the literature of his own country has a simultaneous
existence and composes a simultaneous order. This historical sense, which
is a sense of the timeless as well as of the temporal and of the
timeless and of the temporal together, is what makes a writer
traditional. And it is at the same time what makes a writer most acutely
conscious of his place in time, of his contemporaneity.
3
No poet, no artist of any art, has his complete meaning alone. His
significance, his appreciation is the appreciation of his relation to the
dead poets and artists. You cannot value him alone; you must set him, for
contrast and comparison, among the dead. I mean this as a
principle of æsthetic, not merely historical, criticism.
<snip>
5
To proceed to a more intelligible exposition of the relation of the
poet to the past: he can neither take the past as a lump, an
indiscriminate bolus, nor can he form himself wholly on one or two
private admirations, nor can he form himself wholly upon one
preferred period. The first course is inadmissible, the second is an
important experience of youth, and the third is a pleasant and highly
desirable supplement. The poet must be very conscious of the main
current, which does not at all flow invariably through the most
distinguished reputations. He must be quite aware of the obvious fact
that art never improves, but that the material of art is never quite
the same. He must be aware that the mind of Europe—the mind of his own
country—a mind which he learns in time to be much more
important than his own private mind—is a mind which changes, and that
this change is a development which abandons nothing en route,
which does not superannuate either Shakespeare, or Homer, or the rock
drawing of the Magdalenian draughtsmen. That this development,
refinement perhaps, complication certainly, is not, from the point of
view of the artist, any improvement. Perhaps not even an
improvement from the point of view of the psychologist or not to the
extent which we imagine; perhaps only in the end based upon a
complication in economics and machinery. But the difference between the
present and the past is that the conscious present is an
awareness of the past in a way and to an extent which the past's
awareness of itself cannot show.
6
Some one said: "The dead writers are remote from us because we know so
much more than they did." Precisely, and they are that which
we know.
7
I am alive to a usual objection to what is clearly part of my programme
for the métier of poetry. The objection is that the doctrine
requires a ridiculous amount of erudition (pedantry), a claim which can
be rejected by appeal to the lives of poets in any pantheon. It
will even be affirmed that much learning deadens or perverts poetic
sensibility. While, however, we persist in believing that a poet
ought to know as much as will not encroach upon his necessary receptivity
and necessary laziness, it is not desirable to confine
knowledge to whatever can be put into a useful shape for examinations,
drawing-rooms, or the still more pretentious modes of publicity.
Some can absorb knowledge, the more tardy must sweat for it. Shakespeare
acquired more essential history from Plutarch than most men
could from the whole British Museum. What is to be insisted upon is that
the poet must develop or procure the consciousness of the past
and that he should continue to develop this consciousness throughout his
career.
8
What happens is a continual surrender of himself as he is at the moment
to something which is more valuable. The progress of an artist
is a continual self-sacrifice, a continual extinction of personality.
9
There remains to define this process of depersonalization and its
relation to the sense of tradition. It is in this depersonalization that art
may be said to approach the condition of science. I shall, therefore,
invite you to consider, as a suggestive analogy, the action which
takes place when a bit of finely filiated platinum is introduced into a
chamber containing oxygen and sulphur dioxide.
10
<snip>
14
The point of view which I am struggling to attack is perhaps related to
the metaphysical theory of the substantial unity of the soul: for
my meaning is, that the poet has, not a "personality" to express, but a
particular medium, which is only a medium and not a personality, in
which impressions and experiences combine in peculiar and unexpected
ways. Impressions and experiences which are important for the
man may take no place in the poetry, and those which become important in
the poetry may play quite a negligible part in the man, the
personality.
15
I will quote a passage which is unfamiliar enough to be regarded with
fresh attention in the light—or darkness—of these observations:
And now methinks I could e'en chide myself
For doating on her beauty, though her death
Shall be revenged after no common action.
Does the silkworm expend her yellow labours
For thee? For thee does she undo herself?
Are lordships sold to maintain ladyships
For the poor benefit of a bewildering minute?
Why does yon fellow falsify highways,
And put his life between the judge's lips,
To refine such a thing—keeps horse and men
To beat their valours for her?...
In this passage (as is evident if it is taken in its context) there is a
combination of positive and negative emotions: an intensely strong
attraction toward beauty and an equally intense fascination by the
ugliness which is contrasted with it and which destroys it. This balance
of contrasted emotion is in the dramatic situation to which the speech is
pertinent, but that situation alone is inadequate to it. This is, so to
speak, the structural emotion, provided by the drama. But the whole
effect, the dominant tone, is due to the fact that a number of floating
feelings, having an affinity to this emotion by no means superficially
evident, have combined with it to give us a new art emotion.
16
It is not in his personal emotions, the emotions provoked by particular
events in his life, that the poet is in any way remarkable or
interesting. His particular emotions may be simple, or crude, or flat.
The emotion in his poetry will be a very complex thing, but not with
the complexity of the emotions of people who have very complex or unusual
emotions in life. One error, in fact, of eccentricity in poetry
is to seek for new human emotions to express; and in this search for
novelty in the wrong place it discovers the perverse. The business of
the poet is not to find new emotions, but to use the ordinary ones and,
in working them up into poetry, to express feelings which are not in
actual emotions at all. And emotions which he has never experienced will
serve his turn as well as those familiar to him. Consequently,
we must believe that "emotion recollected in tranquillity" is an inexact
formula. For it is neither emotion, nor recollection, nor, without
distortion of meaning, tranquillity. It is a concentration, and a new
thing resulting from the concentration, of a very great number of
experiences which to the practical and active person would not seem to be
experiences at all; it is a concentration which does not happen
consciously or of deliberation. These experiences are not "recollected,"
and they finally unite in an atmosphere which is "tranquil" only
in that it is a passive attending upon the event. Of course this is not
quite the whole story. There is a great deal, in the writing of poetry,
which must be conscious and deliberate. In fact, the bad poet is usually
unconscious where he ought to be conscious, and conscious
where he ought to be unconscious. Both errors tend to make him
"personal." Poetry is not a turning loose of emotion, but an escape from
emotion; it is not the expression of personality, but an escape from
personality. But, of course, only those who have personality and
emotions know what it means to want to escape from these things.
<snip>
Anyway...I could comment more on that...but for now, I think I sums up what I
don't like about Modern English Poetry
You never can tell....................................................Pete
JAS Carter
<Peter....@rtp.ppdi.com> spake thus:
>Anyway...I could comment more on that...but for now, I think I sums up what I
>don't like about Modern English Poetry
I disagree with much of what he says.
And you still have not defined modernism.
Peter Hickman
JAS Carter wrote:
> On Fri, 14 Jan 2000 13:19:35 -0500, in misc.writing Peter Hickman
> <Peter....@rtp.ppdi.com> spake thus:
>
> >Anyway...I could comment more on that...but for now, I think I sums up what I
> >don't like about Modern English Poetry
>
> I disagree with much of what he says.
>
> And you still have not defined modernism.
>
Modernism (with specific reference to poetry) is the set of aesthetic points
that insists that:
1) a poet has an asocial calling to an activity that requires him to produce or
induce emotions or states of linguistic plenitude that he or his readers would not
encounter generally in their ordinary lives
2)that this asocial activity is part of a large tradition (rather than, as I would
say, the distorted effect of not defining his genre(s))...but this relation is
un-defined (see 6, 7 ,8)
3)that this asocial activity has an especially intense relation to language that
is only imperfectly reflected in its results
4)that the asocial activity produces its results/effects via un-specified
mechanisms that do not necessarily involve the generic expectations of the reader
(see 2)
5) that this asocial activity is perfected by the reduction of the product to a
core of meaning that cannot be found in any other form except in the product
itself
6) and yet (somewhat contradictorily) any sort of literary device can be used to
expand the above posturing so as to make it appear to be a sensible thing to do
7) and yet (contradicting all of the above) only certain types of literary devices
are actually widely used and even then they are often undermined by the tedious
irony induced by point 6
8)and in the end there is no way in the Modernist Aesthetic to account for the
actual practices that fall under 6 and 7 (ie...Modernism has no coherent account
of genre and aesthetics)...the excuse for this problem is point 3
You never can tell...............................................Pete
JAS Carter
<Peter....@rtp.ppdi.com> spake thus:
>> >Anyway...I could comment more on that...but for now, I think I sums up what I
>> >don't like about Modern English Poetry
>>
>> I disagree with much of what he says.
>>
>> And you still have not defined modernism.
>
> Modernism (with specific reference to poetry) is the set of aesthetic points
>that insists that:
>
>1) a poet has an asocial calling to an activity that requires him to produce or
>induce emotions or states of linguistic plenitude that he or his readers would not
>encounter generally in their ordinary lives
Okay. I do not believe this to be the purpose or the intent of my
poetry, though I will not attempt to decipher what your definition of
"linguistic plenitude" may be. Nor "asocial."
>2)that this asocial activity is part of a large tradition (rather than, as I would
>say, the distorted effect of not defining his genre(s))...but this relation is
>un-defined (see 6, 7 ,8)
Again, I must ask you to define "asocial."
>3)that this asocial activity has an especially intense relation to language that
>is only imperfectly reflected in its results
All writing has an intense relation to language, just as all
engineering has an intense relation to physics.
>4)that the asocial activity produces its results/effects via un-specified
>mechanisms that do not necessarily involve the generic expectations of the reader
>(see 2)
You like to use words that are ill-defined, don't you?
>5) that this asocial activity is perfected by the reduction of the product to a
>core of meaning that cannot be found in any other form except in the product
>itself
Poetry can have different effects than other forms of writing, but its
effect is usually a matter of degree than of kind. It's short,
usually, and must work faster than most types of writing.
>6) and yet (somewhat contradictorily) any sort of literary device can be used to
>expand the above posturing so as to make it appear to be a sensible thing to do
You are trying to weight your terms.
>7) and yet (contradicting all of the above) only certain types of literary devices
>are actually widely used and even then they are often undermined by the tedious
>irony induced by point 6
Obviously, you cannot define modernism, since no definition would have
such a snarky tone.
>8)and in the end there is no way in the Modernist Aesthetic to account for the
>actual practices that fall under 6 and 7 (ie...Modernism has no coherent account
>of genre and aesthetics)...the excuse for this problem is point 3
*sigh*
Talking with you is like trying to slice bread with a wet noodle.
Peter Hickman
JAS Carter wrote:
> On Fri, 14 Jan 2000 13:57:37 -0500, in misc.writing Peter Hickman
> <Peter....@rtp.ppdi.com> spake thus:
>
> >> >Anyway...I could comment more on that...but for now, I think I sums up what I
> >> >don't like about Modern English Poetry
> >>
> >> I disagree with much of what he says.
> >>
> >> And you still have not defined modernism.
> >
> > Modernism (with specific reference to poetry) is the set of aesthetic points
> >that insists that:
> >
> >1) a poet has an asocial calling to an activity that requires him to produce or
> >induce emotions or states of linguistic plenitude that he or his readers would not
> >encounter generally in their ordinary lives
>
> Okay. I do not believe this to be the purpose or the intent of my
> poetry, though I will not attempt to decipher what your definition of
> "linguistic plenitude" may be. Nor "asocial."
Thanks.
>
> >2)that this asocial activity is part of a large tradition (rather than, as I would
> >say, the distorted effect of not defining his genre(s))...but this relation is
> >un-defined (see 6, 7 ,8)
>
> Again, I must ask you to define "asocial."
Asocial -- supposedly not related to something social
>
> >3)that this asocial activity has an especially intense relation to language that
> >is only imperfectly reflected in its results
>
> All writing has an intense relation to language, just as all
> engineering has an intense relation to physics.
You seem to be defending Modernism.
>
> >4)that the asocial activity produces its results/effects via un-specified
> >mechanisms that do not necessarily involve the generic expectations of the reader
> >(see 2)
>
> You like to use words that are ill-defined, don't you?
I guess I'll have to write a book or two.
> >5) that this asocial activity is perfected by the reduction of the product to a
> >core of meaning that cannot be found in any other form except in the product
> >itself
>
> Poetry can have different effects than other forms of writing, but its
> effect is usually a matter of degree than of kind. It's short,
> usually, and must work faster than most types of writing.
Very good! That's not particularly Modernist! I think the imagistic overtones are
non-aesthetic-specific....
>
> >6) and yet (somewhat contradictorily) any sort of literary device can be used to
> >expand the above posturing so as to make it appear to be a sensible thing to do
>
> You are trying to weight your terms.
I don't like Modernism.
>
> >7) and yet (contradicting all of the above) only certain types of literary devices
> >are actually widely used and even then they are often undermined by the tedious
> >irony induced by point 6
>
> Obviously, you cannot define modernism, since no definition would have
> such a snarky tone.
I don't like Modernism. I was hoping somebody else would define it.
>
> >8)and in the end there is no way in the Modernist Aesthetic to account for the
> >actual practices that fall under 6 and 7 (ie...Modernism has no coherent account
> >of genre and aesthetics)...the excuse for this problem is point 3
>
> *sigh*
>
> Talking with you is like trying to slice bread with a wet noodle.
Well...I don't like Modernism. I didn't want to define it.
You never can tell................................Pete
JAS Carter
<Peter....@rtp.ppdi.com> spake thus:
>> > Modernism (with specific reference to poetry) is the set of aesthetic points
>> >that insists that:
>> >
>> >1) a poet has an asocial calling to an activity that requires him to produce or
>> >induce emotions or states of linguistic plenitude that he or his readers would not
>> >encounter generally in their ordinary lives
>>
>> Okay. I do not believe this to be the purpose or the intent of my
>> poetry, though I will not attempt to decipher what your definition of
>> "linguistic plenitude" may be. Nor "asocial."
>
> Thanks.
So, either define them, or hide behind them.
>> >2)that this asocial activity is part of a large tradition (rather than, as I would
>> >say, the distorted effect of not defining his genre(s))...but this relation is
>> >un-defined (see 6, 7 ,8)
>>
>> Again, I must ask you to define "asocial."
>
> Asocial -- supposedly not related to something social
Communication is, by its very nature, social.
Poetry is communication, or an attempt at communication.
Poetry is, therefore, social.
>> >3)that this asocial activity has an especially intense relation to language that
>> >is only imperfectly reflected in its results
>>
>> All writing has an intense relation to language, just as all
>> engineering has an intense relation to physics.
>
> You seem to be defending Modernism.
If I twirl in my chair, I am not using language. If I write a poem, I
am. Writing the poem is, therefore, a more intense use of language
than chair-twirling.
The short stories and novel I have written are a more intense use of
language than chair-twirling.
Though chair-twirling is a more intense use of physics, I suppose.
>> >5) that this asocial activity is perfected by the reduction of the product to a
>> >core of meaning that cannot be found in any other form except in the product
>> >itself
>>
>> Poetry can have different effects than other forms of writing, but its
>> effect is usually a matter of degree than of kind. It's short,
>> usually, and must work faster than most types of writing.
>
> Very good! That's not particularly Modernist! I think the imagistic overtones are
>non-aesthetic-specific....
Whatever.
Anything I say you will attempt to define as either modernist or
amodernist, I suppose, though I have yet to see anything approaching a
usable definition.
>> >6) and yet (somewhat contradictorily) any sort of literary device can be used to
>> >expand the above posturing so as to make it appear to be a sensible thing to do
>>
>> You are trying to weight your terms.
>
> I don't like Modernism.
If you cannot define it objectively, I'd say you can't define it. You
can merely rant about it.
>> >7) and yet (contradicting all of the above) only certain types of literary devices
>> >are actually widely used and even then they are often undermined by the tedious
>> >irony induced by point 6
>>
>> Obviously, you cannot define modernism, since no definition would have
>> such a snarky tone.
>
> I don't like Modernism. I was hoping somebody else would define it.
No one else, and I've asked dozens at this point, seems able to define
it.
>> >8)and in the end there is no way in the Modernist Aesthetic to account for the
>> >actual practices that fall under 6 and 7 (ie...Modernism has no coherent account
>> >of genre and aesthetics)...the excuse for this problem is point 3
>>
>> *sigh*
>>
>> Talking with you is like trying to slice bread with a wet noodle.
>
> Well...I don't like Modernism. I didn't want to define it.
Of course not, because then you may start to realize that,
1. The people you're calling "Modernists" may not be, and
2. you don't know how to define it adequately.
My dictionary at hand, which is a miserable excuse for a dictionary,
I'll grant, defines modernism as "a deliberate philosophical and
practical estrangement or divergence from the past in the arts and
literature occurring esp. in the course of the 20th century and taking
form in any of various innovative movements and styles."
Now, Dante didn't write in the 20th century, but otherwise this nails
him.
Was Dante a Modernist?
Usenet Poster Boy
jsgo...@yahoo.com (JAS Carter) writes:
> On Fri, 14 Jan 2000 13:57:37 -0500, in misc.writing Peter Hickman
> <Peter....@rtp.ppdi.com> spake thus:
>
> > Modernism (with specific reference to poetry) is the set of
> > aesthetic points that insists that:
> >
> >1) a poet has an asocial calling to an activity that requires him
> > to produce or induce emotions or states of linguistic plenitude
> > that he or his readers would not encounter generally in their
> > ordinary lives
>
Nope. That's not the commonly accepted definition of "Modernism" in
Poetry. Peter is directed to either _The Oxford Companion to the
English Language_ or _The Princeton Encyclopedia of Poetry and Poetics_
for an accurate definition.
> Okay. I do not believe this to be the purpose or the intent of my
> poetry, though I will not attempt to decipher what your definition
> of "linguistic plenitude" may be. Nor "asocial."
It doesn't matter. Peter's wrong about "asocial", "requires", and
"produce or induce". where "wrong" means "isn't using the word the
way that it is used in the literature.
>
> >4)that the asocial activity produces its results/effects via un-specified
> > mechanisms that do not necessarily involve the generic
> > expectations of the reader
> >(see 2)
>
> You like to use words that are ill-defined, don't you?
>
Actually he likes to misuse words that are well defined in ways that
obfuscate their intent. Peter's still confused about the distinction
between genre and generic, for instance.
> >5) that this asocial activity is perfected by the reduction of the
> > product to a core of meaning that cannot be found in any other
> > form except in the product itself
>
This is very confused, since there is no assumption in Modernism that
a particular art form is the sole form in which a particular meaning
can be expressed. Many Modernists strove to find multiple statements
of the same concept in different media, for instance the Bauhaus
movement, and Steiglitz.
> Poetry can have different effects than other forms of writing, but
> its effect is usually a matter of degree than of kind. It's short,
> usually, and must work faster than most types of writing.
>
Every medium creates its effects in different ways. All artists know
this, and there is nothing peculiar to Modernism about the exploration
of how to express a certain effect in a specific medium.
[snip]
> >7) and yet (contradicting all of the above) only certain types of
> > literary devices are actually widely used and even then they are
> > often undermined by the tedious irony induced by point 6
>
> Obviously, you cannot define modernism, since no definition would
> have such a snarky tone.
>
This point has nothing to do with Modernism, anyway.
Peter Hickman
JAS Carter wrote:
> On Fri, 14 Jan 2000 14:41:46 -0500, in misc.writing Peter Hickman
> <Peter....@rtp.ppdi.com> spake thus:
>
> >> > Modernism (with specific reference to poetry) is the set of aesthetic points
> >> >that insists that:
> >> >
> >> >1) a poet has an asocial calling to an activity that requires him to produce or
> >> >induce emotions or states of linguistic plenitude that he or his readers would not
> >> >encounter generally in their ordinary lives
> >>
> >> Okay. I do not believe this to be the purpose or the intent of my
> >> poetry, though I will not attempt to decipher what your definition of
> >> "linguistic plenitude" may be. Nor "asocial."
> >
> > Thanks.
>
> So, either define them, or hide behind them.
"Linguistic plenitude" is pretty ironic if applied to Modernism since one of the core
oddities of Modernism is that in its view "language fails" (so to speak) and the symptom of
this is a tendency for "language" to appear as a kind of fantasy of plenitude and
fulfullment...
Asocial...see below...
>
>
> >> >2)that this asocial activity is part of a large tradition (rather than, as I would
> >> >say, the distorted effect of not defining his genre(s))...but this relation is
> >> >un-defined (see 6, 7 ,8)
> >>
> >> Again, I must ask you to define "asocial."
> >
> > Asocial -- supposedly not related to something social
>
> Communication is, by its very nature, social.
>
> Poetry is communication, or an attempt at communication.
>
> Poetry is, therefore, social.
Is an attemped communication social? And how does the notion of communication fit in
(if at all) with the notion of genre?
>
> >> >3)that this asocial activity has an especially intense relation to language that
> >> >is only imperfectly reflected in its results
> >>
> >> All writing has an intense relation to language, just as all
> >> engineering has an intense relation to physics.
> >
> > You seem to be defending Modernism.
>
> If I twirl in my chair, I am not using language. If I write a poem, I
> am. Writing the poem is, therefore, a more intense use of language
> than chair-twirling.
>
> The short stories and novel I have written are a more intense use of
> language than chair-twirling.
This sounds like a round-about defense of Modernism to me.
>
>
> Though chair-twirling is a more intense use of physics, I suppose.
>
> >> >5) that this asocial activity is perfected by the reduction of the product to a
> >> >core of meaning that cannot be found in any other form except in the product
> >> >itself
> >>
> >> Poetry can have different effects than other forms of writing, but its
> >> effect is usually a matter of degree than of kind. It's short,
> >> usually, and must work faster than most types of writing.
> >
> > Very good! That's not particularly Modernist! I think the imagistic overtones are
> >non-aesthetic-specific....
>
> Whatever.
>
> Anything I say you will attempt to define as either modernist or
> amodernist, I suppose, though I have yet to see anything approaching a
> usable definition.
Sorry...I didn't want to define Modernism.
>
> >> >6) and yet (somewhat contradictorily) any sort of literary device can be used to
> >> >expand the above posturing so as to make it appear to be a sensible thing to do
> >>
> >> You are trying to weight your terms.
> >
> > I don't like Modernism.
>
> If you cannot define it objectively, I'd say you can't define it. You
> can merely rant about it.
You seem to be weighting your terms.
>
> >> >7) and yet (contradicting all of the above) only certain types of literary devices
> >> >are actually widely used and even then they are often undermined by the tedious
> >> >irony induced by point 6
> >>
> >> Obviously, you cannot define modernism, since no definition would have
> >> such a snarky tone.
> >
> > I don't like Modernism. I was hoping somebody else would define it.
>
> No one else, and I've asked dozens at this point, seems able to define
> it.
>
> >> >8)and in the end there is no way in the Modernist Aesthetic to account for the
> >> >actual practices that fall under 6 and 7 (ie...Modernism has no coherent account
> >> >of genre and aesthetics)...the excuse for this problem is point 3
> >>
> >> *sigh*
> >>
> >> Talking with you is like trying to slice bread with a wet noodle.
> >
> > Well...I don't like Modernism. I didn't want to define it.
>
> Of course not, because then you may start to realize that,
>
> 1. The people you're calling "Modernists" may not be, and
> 2. you don't know how to define it adequately.
>
> My dictionary at hand, which is a miserable excuse for a dictionary,
> I'll grant, defines modernism as "a deliberate philosophical and
> practical estrangement or divergence from the past in the arts and
> literature occurring esp. in the course of the 20th century and taking
> form in any of various innovative movements and styles."
Well...look at the Eliot thing and you'll see that doesn't begin to cover Modernism.
>
> Now, Dante didn't write in the 20th century, but otherwise this nails
> him.
>
> Was Dante a Modernist?
No. He thought his poetry was more or less social and would more or less function
within the world of the reader's expectations....
You never can tell.............Pete
JAS Carter
<Peter....@rtp.ppdi.com> spake thus:
>> >> >1) a poet has an asocial calling to an activity that requires him to produce or
>> >> >induce emotions or states of linguistic plenitude that he or his readers would not
>> >> >encounter generally in their ordinary lives
>> >>
>> >> Okay. I do not believe this to be the purpose or the intent of my
>> >> poetry, though I will not attempt to decipher what your definition of
>> >> "linguistic plenitude" may be. Nor "asocial."
>> >
>> > Thanks.
>>
>> So, either define them, or hide behind them.
>
> "Linguistic plenitude" is pretty ironic if applied to Modernism since one of the core
>oddities of Modernism is that in its view "language fails" (so to speak) and the symptom of
>this is a tendency for "language" to appear as a kind of fantasy of plenitude and
>fulfullment...
Language fails what? And how does that refer to the "plenitude" you
mentioned?
>> >> >2)that this asocial activity is part of a large tradition (rather than, as I would
>> >> >say, the distorted effect of not defining his genre(s))...but this relation is
>> >> >un-defined (see 6, 7 ,8)
>> >>
>> >> Again, I must ask you to define "asocial."
>> >
>> > Asocial -- supposedly not related to something social
>>
>> Communication is, by its very nature, social.
>>
>> Poetry is communication, or an attempt at communication.
>>
>> Poetry is, therefore, social.
>
> Is an attemped communication social?
Give an example of a time when it isn't.
>And how does the notion of communication fit in (if at all) with the notion of genre?
I have no idea, since I am not versed in what you would define as
genre.
I say that poetry is social, not asocial.
>> >> >3)that this asocial activity has an especially intense relation to language that
>> >> >is only imperfectly reflected in its results
>> >>
>> >> All writing has an intense relation to language, just as all
>> >> engineering has an intense relation to physics.
>> >
>> > You seem to be defending Modernism.
>>
>> If I twirl in my chair, I am not using language. If I write a poem, I
>> am. Writing the poem is, therefore, a more intense use of language
>> than chair-twirling.
>>
>> The short stories and novel I have written are a more intense use of
>> language than chair-twirling.
>
>This sounds like a round-about defense of Modernism to me.
Yadda yadda.
Does your writing not use language?
Although, I will admit, your use of language is the most "asocial"
I've ever seen, since you seem more intent on failing to communicate
than communicating.
Tell me where what I say fails, not what label you put on it.
You hate modernism, then define everything I say as modernism without
ever saying
1. How it fits the definition, or
2. how your opinion differs.
>> >> >5) that this asocial activity is perfected by the reduction of the product to a
>> >> >core of meaning that cannot be found in any other form except in the product
>> >> >itself
>> >>
>> >> Poetry can have different effects than other forms of writing, but its
>> >> effect is usually a matter of degree than of kind. It's short,
>> >> usually, and must work faster than most types of writing.
>> >
>> > Very good! That's not particularly Modernist! I think the imagistic overtones are
>> >non-aesthetic-specific....
>>
>> Whatever.
>>
>> Anything I say you will attempt to define as either modernist or
>> amodernist, I suppose, though I have yet to see anything approaching a
>> usable definition.
>
> Sorry...I didn't want to define Modernism.
And you still haven't.
>> >> >6) and yet (somewhat contradictorily) any sort of literary device can be used to
>> >> >expand the above posturing so as to make it appear to be a sensible thing to do
>> >>
>> >> You are trying to weight your terms.
>> >
>> > I don't like Modernism.
>>
>> If you cannot define it objectively, I'd say you can't define it. You
>> can merely rant about it.
>
> You seem to be weighting your terms.
A definition gives the denotation of a word, by (ahem) definition.
Your "definition" is spiced with your connotations and quite a bit of
malarkey besides.
>> > I don't like Modernism. I was hoping somebody else would define it.
>>
>> No one else, and I've asked dozens at this point, seems able to define
>> it.
And still no one has.
>> >> >8)and in the end there is no way in the Modernist Aesthetic to account for the
>> >> >actual practices that fall under 6 and 7 (ie...Modernism has no coherent account
>> >> >of genre and aesthetics)...the excuse for this problem is point 3
>> >>
>> >> *sigh*
>> >>
>> >> Talking with you is like trying to slice bread with a wet noodle.
>> >
>> > Well...I don't like Modernism. I didn't want to define it.
>>
>> Of course not, because then you may start to realize that,
>>
>> 1. The people you're calling "Modernists" may not be, and
>> 2. you don't know how to define it adequately.
>>
>> My dictionary at hand, which is a miserable excuse for a dictionary,
>> I'll grant, defines modernism as "a deliberate philosophical and
>> practical estrangement or divergence from the past in the arts and
>> literature occurring esp. in the course of the 20th century and taking
>> form in any of various innovative movements and styles."
>
> Well...look at the Eliot thing and you'll see that doesn't begin to cover Modernism.
I've already stated that I disagree with much of what Eliot has to
say, yet you say I'm a Modernist, so apparently Eliot doesn't cover
Modernism, either.
>> Now, Dante didn't write in the 20th century, but otherwise this nails
>> him.
>>
>> Was Dante a Modernist?
>
> No. He thought his poetry was more or less social and would more or less function
>within the world of the reader's expectations....
And so do I.
Bob Pastorio
> On Fri, 14 Jan 2000 10:14:42 -0500, in misc.writing Peter Hickman
> <Peter....@rtp.ppdi.com> spake thus:
>
Here's a really wonderfully blended (or mismatched if you're a philistine with a
highly developed literary superciliousness, or an actual understand of how doggy
this doggerel really is) statement of position about this whole subject of
formalistic definition. Feel free to quote it. If you do, it says a lot about you,
and none of it is very good. Sorry to break the news...
Whil'st all this thunder's sinkin' in
angels dancing on a pin
Makin' sense of what's within
is surely not a card'nal sin
I just don't think a signpost tells
what flavors word and rhythm jells
like kells and bells and knells and belles
with spells and tells and yells, compels
Read and feel and soar and swoop
soup of the spirit, beautiful soup
gleeful sing and formal swoop
let the words fly loop the loop
Bob (No, but seriously...) Pastorio
Peter Hickman
Usenet Poster Boy wrote:
> jsgo...@yahoo.com (JAS Carter) writes:
>
> > On Fri, 14 Jan 2000 13:57:37 -0500, in misc.writing Peter Hickman
> > <Peter....@rtp.ppdi.com> spake thus:
> >
> > > Modernism (with specific reference to poetry) is the set of
> > > aesthetic points that insists that:
> > >
> > >1) a poet has an asocial calling to an activity that requires him
> > > to produce or induce emotions or states of linguistic plenitude
> > > that he or his readers would not encounter generally in their
> > > ordinary lives
> >
>
> Nope. That's not the commonly accepted definition of "Modernism" in
> Poetry. Peter is directed to either _The Oxford Companion to the
> English Language_ or _The Princeton Encyclopedia of Poetry and Poetics_
> for an accurate definition.
But where is he? I haven't seen him there yet.
>
> > Okay. I do not believe this to be the purpose or the intent of my
> > poetry, though I will not attempt to decipher what your definition
> > of "linguistic plenitude" may be. Nor "asocial."
>
> It doesn't matter. Peter's wrong about "asocial", "requires", and
> "produce or induce". where "wrong" means "isn't using the word the
> way that it is used in the literature.
Well...He doesn't like Modernism. Why dont' you define it? He certainly
did not want to.
>
> > >4)that the asocial activity produces its results/effects via un-specified
> > > mechanisms that do not necessarily involve the generic
> > > expectations of the reader
> > >(see 2)
> >
> > You like to use words that are ill-defined, don't you?
> >
>
> Actually he likes to misuse words that are well defined in ways that
> obfuscate their intent. Peter's still confused about the distinction
> between genre and generic, for instance.
He is? He doesn't think so. "Genre" is a term referring to the
contextual/aesthetic definition of a performance or text. "Generic" is an
adjective referring to that which is related to such a definition.
>
> > >5) that this asocial activity is perfected by the reduction of the
> > > product to a core of meaning that cannot be found in any other
> > > form except in the product itself
> >
>
> This is very confused, since there is no assumption in Modernism that
> a particular art form is the sole form in which a particular meaning
> can be expressed. Many Modernists strove to find multiple statements
> of the same concept in different media, for instance the Bauhaus
> movement, and Steiglitz.
It may be confused, but somebody was able to see the whole range of its
possible applicability. Note that this Pete guy is describing only poetry.
>
> > Poetry can have different effects than other forms of writing, but
> > its effect is usually a matter of degree than of kind. It's short,
> > usually, and must work faster than most types of writing.
> >
>
> Every medium creates its effects in different ways. All artists know
> this, and there is nothing peculiar to Modernism about the exploration
> of how to express a certain effect in a specific medium.
Right...so see what that Pete guy said above about a core of meaning...
> [snip]
>
> > >7) and yet (contradicting all of the above) only certain types of
> > > literary devices are actually widely used and even then they are
> > > often undermined by the tedious irony induced by point 6
> >
> > Obviously, you cannot define modernism, since no definition would
> > have such a snarky tone.
> >
>
> This point has nothing to do with Modernism, anyway.
Why has it nothing to do with Modernism? That Pete guy thinks that tedious
irony is the very essence of Modernism.
>
> > >8)and in the end there is no way in the Modernist Aesthetic to
> > >account for the actual practices that fall under 6 and 7
> > >(ie...Modernism has no coherent account of genre and
> > >aesthetics)...the excuse for this problem is point 3
> >
> > *sigh*
> >
> > Talking with you is like trying to slice bread with a wet noodle.
That Pete guy says.........You never can tell.........
Bob Pastorio
> I have a simpler proposal:
>
> 1) The basic aesthetic in all the arts is still Romanticism, especially
> in its Modernist form
>
> 2) There have been occasional interludes of anti-Romanticism (Symbolism,
> Surrealism and the Beatniks spring to mind)
>
> So the basic Chronology is Post-Neo-Classicism/Romanticism/Modernism:
> 1800 to 2000
> with little interludes of some other stuff.
Is "wieldy" a word?
Bob (No time to look it up.... Trying to follow this thread...) Pastorio
Sunbeam the Deacon
JAS Carter wrote:
>
> On Fri, 14 Jan 2000 15:36:07 -0500, in misc.writing Peter Hickman
> <Peter....@rtp.ppdi.com> spake thus:
>
> >> >> >1) a poet has an asocial calling to an activity that requires him to produce or
> >> >> >induce emotions or states of linguistic plenitude that he or his readers would not
> >> >> >encounter generally in their ordinary lives
> >> >>
> >> >> Okay. I do not believe this to be the purpose or the intent of my
> >> >> poetry, though I will not attempt to decipher what your definition of
> >> >> "linguistic plenitude" may be. Nor "asocial."
> >> >
> >> > Thanks.
> >>
> >> So, either define them, or hide behind them.
> >
> > "Linguistic plenitude" is pretty ironic if applied to Modernism since one of the core
> >oddities of Modernism is that in its view "language fails" (so to speak) and the symptom of
> >this is a tendency for "language" to appear as a kind of fantasy of plenitude and
> >fulfullment...
>
> Language fails what? And how does that refer to the "plenitude" you
> mentioned?
In the Modernist evaluation/aesthetic, language is one of those signs
of a lost unity of thought and feeling (I refer you to T. S. Eliot for a
lot of beating around the Modernist Bush on this topic)...and poems (a
privileged anti-generic genre from the Modernist point of view) allow a
glimpse of what this primordial unity was like...back in the days of the
Metaphysical Poets (see Eliot on this as well).
I would like to borrow a bit of the Modernist deal and point out that
this plenitude of meaning and the full functioning of language is a
fantasy.
>
> >> >> >2)that this asocial activity is part of a large tradition (rather than, as I would
> >> >> >say, the distorted effect of not defining his genre(s))...but this relation is
> >> >> >un-defined (see 6, 7 ,8)
> >> >>
> >> >> Again, I must ask you to define "asocial."
> >> >
> >> > Asocial -- supposedly not related to something social
> >>
> >> Communication is, by its very nature, social.
> >>
> >> Poetry is communication, or an attempt at communication.
> >>
> >> Poetry is, therefore, social.
> >
> > Is an attemped communication social?
>
> Give an example of a time when it isn't.
The signal fails to reach the subject or it is misread...(see lost
plenitude etc. etc.)
>
> >And how does the notion of communication fit in (if at all) with the notion of genre?
>
> I have no idea, since I am not versed in what you would define as
> genre.
A genre is to put it crudely, the social use/definition of a literary
text.
>
> I say that poetry is social, not asocial.
Then language functions perfectly in every poem? Everybody always says
exactly what they mean?
>
> >> >> >3)that this asocial activity has an especially intense relation to language that
> >> >> >is only imperfectly reflected in its results
> >> >>
> >> >> All writing has an intense relation to language, just as all
> >> >> engineering has an intense relation to physics.
> >> >
> >> > You seem to be defending Modernism.
> >>
> >> If I twirl in my chair, I am not using language. If I write a poem, I
> >> am. Writing the poem is, therefore, a more intense use of language
> >> than chair-twirling.
> >>
> >> The short stories and novel I have written are a more intense use of
> >> language than chair-twirling.
> >
> >This sounds like a round-about defense of Modernism to me.
>
> Yadda yadda.
>
> Does your writing not use language?
Sure...but I expect it to function in a genre and in an aesthetic, not
as a communication.
> Although, I will admit, your use of language is the most "asocial"
> I've ever seen, since you seem more intent on failing to communicate
> than communicating.
>
I'm writing within the genre of the ng post.
> Tell me where what I say fails, not what label you put on it.
Why? One must expect a very high degree of communications
failures...ie the more social the more the failures
Not like you and the Modernists in the imaginary perfect world of
infailible communication as an asocial ideal.
>
> You hate modernism, then define everything I say as modernism without
> ever saying
>
> 1. How it fits the definition, or
> 2. how your opinion differs.
I don't hate modernism...I just think it has been very bad for poetry.
> >> >> >5) that this asocial activity is perfected by the reduction of the product to a
> >> >> >core of meaning that cannot be found in any other form except in the product
> >> >> >itself
> >> >>
> >> >> Poetry can have different effects than other forms of writing, but its
> >> >> effect is usually a matter of degree than of kind. It's short,
> >> >> usually, and must work faster than most types of writing.
> >> >
> >> > Very good! That's not particularly Modernist! I think the imagistic overtones are
> >> >non-aesthetic-specific....
> >>
> >> Whatever.
> >>
> >> Anything I say you will attempt to define as either modernist or
> >> amodernist, I suppose, though I have yet to see anything approaching a
> >> usable definition.
> >
> > Sorry...I didn't want to define Modernism.
>
> And you still haven't.
>
But I am trying.
> >> >> >6) and yet (somewhat contradictorily) any sort of literary device can be used to
> >> >> >expand the above posturing so as to make it appear to be a sensible thing to do
> >> >>
> >> >> You are trying to weight your terms.
> >> >
> >> > I don't like Modernism.
> >>
> >> If you cannot define it objectively, I'd say you can't define it. You
> >> can merely rant about it.
> >
> > You seem to be weighting your terms.
>
> A definition gives the denotation of a word, by (ahem) definition.
This is a common problem in NG "communication". The meaning of a word
is not the same as any number of dictionary definitions.
> Your "definition" is spiced with your connotations and quite a bit of
> malarkey besides.
I don't like Modernism and nobody else wants to have anything to do
with it either...it seems.
>
> >> > I don't like Modernism. I was hoping somebody else would define it.
> >>
> >> No one else, and I've asked dozens at this point, seems able to define
> >> it.
>
> And still no one has.
I'm trying.
>
> >> >> >8)and in the end there is no way in the Modernist Aesthetic to account for the
> >> >> >actual practices that fall under 6 and 7 (ie...Modernism has no coherent account
> >> >> >of genre and aesthetics)...the excuse for this problem is point 3
> >> >>
> >> >> *sigh*
> >> >>
> >> >> Talking with you is like trying to slice bread with a wet noodle.
> >> >
> >> > Well...I don't like Modernism. I didn't want to define it.
> >>
> >> Of course not, because then you may start to realize that,
> >>
> >> 1. The people you're calling "Modernists" may not be, and
> >> 2. you don't know how to define it adequately.
> >>
> >> My dictionary at hand, which is a miserable excuse for a dictionary,
> >> I'll grant, defines modernism as "a deliberate philosophical and
> >> practical estrangement or divergence from the past in the arts and
> >> literature occurring esp. in the course of the 20th century and taking
> >> form in any of various innovative movements and styles."
> >
> > Well...look at the Eliot thing and you'll see that doesn't begin to cover Modernism.
>
> I've already stated that I disagree with much of what Eliot has to
> say, yet you say I'm a Modernist, so apparently Eliot doesn't cover
> Modernism, either.
Well...he covers certain aspects pretty thoroughly and clearly
divergence from the past is not really what he thinks is going on. He
wants to restore, via the poem, a mode of experience in which thought
and feeling and language worked together...but in a society where that
doesn't work, his effort is (tragically, ironically, Modernistically)
asocial.
>
> >> Now, Dante didn't write in the 20th century, but otherwise this nails
> >> him.
> >>
> >> Was Dante a Modernist?
> >
> > No. He thought his poetry was more or less social and would more or less function
> >within the world of the reader's expectations....
>
> And so do I.
>
So you have embarked on the Modernist Project of trying to restore the
purely social unity of thought and meaning and the plenitude of language
etc. etc.?
JAS Carter
<artemu...@worldnet.att.net> wrote:
>> >> >> >1) a poet has an asocial calling to an activity that requires him to produce or
>> >> >> >induce emotions or states of linguistic plenitude that he or his readers would not
>> >> >> >encounter generally in their ordinary lives
>> >> >>
>> >> >> Okay. I do not believe this to be the purpose or the intent of my
>> >> >> poetry, though I will not attempt to decipher what your definition of
>> >> >> "linguistic plenitude" may be. Nor "asocial."
>> >> >
>> >> > Thanks.
>> >>
>> >> So, either define them, or hide behind them.
>> >
>> > "Linguistic plenitude" is pretty ironic if applied to Modernism since one of the core
>> >oddities of Modernism is that in its view "language fails" (so to speak) and the symptom of
>> >this is a tendency for "language" to appear as a kind of fantasy of plenitude and
>> >fulfullment...
>>
>> Language fails what? And how does that refer to the "plenitude" you
>> mentioned?
>
> In the Modernist evaluation/aesthetic, language is one of those signs
>of a lost unity of thought and feeling (I refer you to T. S. Eliot for a
>lot of beating around the Modernist Bush on this topic)...and poems (a
>privileged anti-generic genre from the Modernist point of view) allow a
>glimpse of what this primordial unity was like...back in the days of the
>Metaphysical Poets (see Eliot on this as well).
Sounds like hooey to me.
> I would like to borrow a bit of the Modernist deal and point out that
>this plenitude of meaning and the full functioning of language is a
>fantasy.
It sounds like a pointless exercise, since I've yet to hear anyone
champion it.
>> >> >> >2)that this asocial activity is part of a large tradition (rather than, as I would
>> >> >> >say, the distorted effect of not defining his genre(s))...but this relation is
>> >> >> >un-defined (see 6, 7 ,8)
>> >> >>
>> >> >> Again, I must ask you to define "asocial."
>> >> >
>> >> > Asocial -- supposedly not related to something social
>> >>
>> >> Communication is, by its very nature, social.
>> >>
>> >> Poetry is communication, or an attempt at communication.
>> >>
>> >> Poetry is, therefore, social.
>> >
>> > Is an attemped communication social?
>>
>> Give an example of a time when it isn't.
>
> The signal fails to reach the subject or it is misread...(see lost
>plenitude etc. etc.)
I would say that's still an attempt at communication, and all
communication is social.
Communication requires a with.
>> >And how does the notion of communication fit in (if at all) with the notion of genre?
>>
>> I have no idea, since I am not versed in what you would define as
>> genre.
>
> A genre is to put it crudely, the social use/definition of a literary
>text.
>
>> I say that poetry is social, not asocial.
>
> Then language functions perfectly in every poem? Everybody always says
>exactly what they mean?
Not at all. You require communication to be perfect before it is
social?
Then "social" cannot apply to any communication.
>> >> >> >3)that this asocial activity has an especially intense relation to language that
>> >> >> >is only imperfectly reflected in its results
>> >> >>
>> >> >> All writing has an intense relation to language, just as all
>> >> >> engineering has an intense relation to physics.
>> >> >
>> >> > You seem to be defending Modernism.
>> >>
>> >> If I twirl in my chair, I am not using language. If I write a poem, I
>> >> am. Writing the poem is, therefore, a more intense use of language
>> >> than chair-twirling.
>> >>
>> >> The short stories and novel I have written are a more intense use of
>> >> language than chair-twirling.
>> >
>> >This sounds like a round-about defense of Modernism to me.
>>
>> Yadda yadda.
>>
>> Does your writing not use language?
>
> Sure...but I expect it to function in a genre and in an aesthetic, not
>as a communication.
And I expect it to function as communication, or else I wouldn't write
it down.
>> Although, I will admit, your use of language is the most "asocial"
>> I've ever seen, since you seem more intent on failing to communicate
>> than communicating.
>>
> I'm writing within the genre of the ng post.
But you're not trying to communicate, by your own admission.
And you bitch about modernists? I'll have to find some somewhere so
they can bitch about you for a while.
>> Tell me where what I say fails, not what label you put on it.
>
> Why? One must expect a very high degree of communications
>failures...ie the more social the more the failures
You said that poetry isn't social because the communication can fail.
> Not like you and the Modernists in the imaginary perfect world of
>infailible communication as an asocial ideal.
I never have stated ANY FUCKING THING about "infailable"
communication.
Communication of all sorts often fails.
Like now, when I'm wondering why the hell you act like you're
communicating when you're obviously having your pet monkey just bang
on the keyboard. At least, that's what it appears you're doing when
you are putting words in my mouth.
There is nothing approaching "perfection" in any work of poetry that
I've ever read, with the possible exception of Macbeth for which I am
incapable of imagining improvement.
But then, I've got the hots for the Elizabethans. What can I say?
>> You hate modernism, then define everything I say as modernism without
>> ever saying
>>
>> 1. How it fits the definition, or
>> 2. how your opinion differs.
>
> I don't hate modernism...I just think it has been very bad for poetry.
Someone hates modernism. Maybe that wasn't you.
>> >> >> >5) that this asocial activity is perfected by the reduction of the product to a
>> >> >> >core of meaning that cannot be found in any other form except in the product
>> >> >> >itself
>> >> >>
>> >> >> Poetry can have different effects than other forms of writing, but its
>> >> >> effect is usually a matter of degree than of kind. It's short,
>> >> >> usually, and must work faster than most types of writing.
>> >> >
>> >> > Very good! That's not particularly Modernist! I think the imagistic overtones are
>> >> >non-aesthetic-specific....
>> >>
>> >> Whatever.
>> >>
>> >> Anything I say you will attempt to define as either modernist or
>> >> amodernist, I suppose, though I have yet to see anything approaching a
>> >> usable definition.
>> >
>> > Sorry...I didn't want to define Modernism.
>>
>> And you still haven't.
>>
> But I am trying.
If it's that hard, it's likely an inexact science, at best.
And, in your inexact science, you've misclassified a few
things/people/statements.
>> >> >> >6) and yet (somewhat contradictorily) any sort of literary device can be used to
>> >> >> >expand the above posturing so as to make it appear to be a sensible thing to do
>> >> >>
>> >> >> You are trying to weight your terms.
>> >> >
>> >> > I don't like Modernism.
>> >>
>> >> If you cannot define it objectively, I'd say you can't define it. You
>> >> can merely rant about it.
>> >
>> > You seem to be weighting your terms.
>>
>> A definition gives the denotation of a word, by (ahem) definition.
>
> This is a common problem in NG "communication". The meaning of a word
>is not the same as any number of dictionary definitions.
Your special meaning may not be, no.
>> Your "definition" is spiced with your connotations and quite a bit of
>> malarkey besides.
>
> I don't like Modernism and nobody else wants to have anything to do
>with it either...it seems.
I dunno. If it fits me, fine.
I've yet to see that it fits me.
>> >> > I don't like Modernism. I was hoping somebody else would define it.
>> >>
>> >> No one else, and I've asked dozens at this point, seems able to define
>> >> it.
>>
>> And still no one has.
>
>I'm trying.
Again, if you're so sure about it, why is it so hard to define?
You (or someone) fussed at me for failing to define poetry
"generically."
I have to produce definitions, but you don't? Neat trick.
>> >> My dictionary at hand, which is a miserable excuse for a dictionary,
>> >> I'll grant, defines modernism as "a deliberate philosophical and
>> >> practical estrangement or divergence from the past in the arts and
>> >> literature occurring esp. in the course of the 20th century and taking
>> >> form in any of various innovative movements and styles."
>> >
>> > Well...look at the Eliot thing and you'll see that doesn't begin to cover Modernism.
>>
>> I've already stated that I disagree with much of what Eliot has to
>> say, yet you say I'm a Modernist, so apparently Eliot doesn't cover
>> Modernism, either.
>
> Well...he covers certain aspects pretty thoroughly and clearly
>divergence from the past is not really what he thinks is going on. He
>wants to restore, via the poem, a mode of experience in which thought
>and feeling and language worked together...but in a society where that
>doesn't work, his effort is (tragically, ironically, Modernistically)
>asocial.
And again, I disagree with much of what he has to say.
>> >> Now, Dante didn't write in the 20th century, but otherwise this nails
>> >> him.
>> >>
>> >> Was Dante a Modernist?
>> >
>> > No. He thought his poetry was more or less social and would more or less function
>> >within the world of the reader's expectations....
>>
>> And so do I.
>
> So you have embarked on the Modernist Project of trying to restore the
>purely social unity of thought and meaning and the plenitude of language
>etc. etc.?
Jesus Christ, no.
I'm one person. I doubt there's any "restoration" of the sort that
can be done, should be done, or ever would be done. Frankly, I don't
think it ever existed, so it cannot be restored.
I write poetry. I write to an audience. I expect my audience to have
at least a middling vocabulary and not expect me to rhyme all the
time.
On the other hand, if I'm writing sonnets, I expect them not to toss
them out the window, declaring forms to be archaic and boring.
Of course, they can do all of those things. I can't stop them.
If anyone says "sonnets suck" I ignore them. If they say "your
sonnets suck" I pay attention.
If anyone says "poetry sucks" I ignore them. If they say "your poetry
sucks" I pay attention.
--
Julie Carter
http://jsgoddess.ourfamily.com
If you're not part of the solution,
you're part of the precipitate.--Henry J. Tillman
Power corrupts. Absolute power is kind of neat.--John Lehman
Peter Hickman
JAS Carter wrote:
> <snip of earlier stuff>
> >
> > In the Modernist evaluation/aesthetic, language is one of those signs
> >of a lost unity of thought and feeling (I refer you to T. S. Eliot for a
> >lot of beating around the Modernist Bush on this topic)...and poems (a
> >privileged anti-generic genre from the Modernist point of view) allow a
> >glimpse of what this primordial unity was like...back in the days of the
> >Metaphysical Poets (see Eliot on this as well).
>
> Sounds like hooey to me.
Sounds like hooey to me too, but you and Eliot share a high regard for the late 16th C. early
17th century as the high point of some sort of poetic deal.
Of course, you and Eliot are not alone in this...however there is a definite strain in
Modernism that always upheld that Elizabethan-Jacobean thing up as the unreachable ideal of
Poetry....and why skip the Romantics? Eliot on occasion quotes Wordsworth merely to refute
him...Why?
Notice that this leaves things a bit obscure as to what exactly poetry is supposed to be doing
these days, and in fact I would say all those negative things I generally do say about how damaging
that is and how much damage that suggests has been done by Modernism to Poetry....but I hope my
point is clear without my having to go back over it in detail.
>
> > I would like to borrow a bit of the Modernist deal and point out that
> >this plenitude of meaning and the full functioning of language is a
> >fantasy.
>
> It sounds like a pointless exercise, since I've yet to hear anyone
> champion it.
So what would you say accounts for the apparently idea state of poetry in the late 16th and
eraly 17th c.?
>
<snip>
>
> > A genre is to put it crudely, the social use/definition of a literary
> >text.
> >
> >> I say that poetry is social, not asocial.
> >
> > Then language functions perfectly in every poem? Everybody always says
> >exactly what they mean?
>
> Not at all. You require communication to be perfect before it is
> social?
>
> Then "social" cannot apply to any communication.
There is another solution. One can propose that communication is a misleading description of a
more complex process and suggest for example (very crudely), that the poem is a signal that can be
decoded via the protocols of a genre. I've suggested that Modernism really does not lend itself to
an aesthetic that evaluates things like that. I have also suggested that to have no idea what a
genre is...is both a symptom of the damage done by Modernism and an insidious device of the Evil of
Modernism itself.
<snip>
>> Although, I will admit, your use of language is the most "asocial"
>> I've ever seen, since you seem more intent on failing to communicate
> >> than communicating.
> >>
> > I'm writing within the genre of the ng post.
>
> But you're not trying to communicate, by your own admission.
No, I'm signaling. You have to do some decoding into your terms.
>
> And you bitch about modernists? I'll have to find some somewhere so
> they can bitch about you for a while.
You're bitching about me, and you are filling in pretty well for Modernism.
>
> >> Tell me where what I say fails, not what label you put on it.
> >
> > Why? One must expect a very high degree of communications
> >failures...ie the more social the more the failures
>
> You said that poetry isn't social because the communication can fail.
I think that is more the Modernist Line.
>
> > Not like you and the Modernists in the imaginary perfect world of
> >infailible communication as an asocial ideal.
>
> I never have stated ANY FUCKING THING about "infailable"
> communication.
>
> Communication of all sorts often fails.
I'd say it fails pretty much by definition. Only you and the Modernists have much hay to make
on that point.
> Like now, when I'm wondering why the hell you act like you're
> communicating when you're obviously having your pet monkey just bang
> on the keyboard. At least, that's what it appears you're doing when
> you are putting words in my mouth.
But ask yourself a more sophisticated question: why would I want my pet monkey to seem to do
this? What does the monkey-seeming do?
>
> There is nothing approaching "perfection" in any work of poetry that
> I've ever read, with the possible exception of Macbeth for which I am
> incapable of imagining improvement.
>
> But then, I've got the hots for the Elizabethans. What can I say?
see above (re: You, the Modernists and the ideal state of late 16th and early 17th c poetry)
> >> You hate modernism, then define everything I say as modernism without
> >> ever saying
> >>
> >> 1. How it fits the definition, or
> >> 2. how your opinion differs.
> >
> > I don't hate modernism...I just think it has been very bad for poetry.
>
> Someone hates modernism. Maybe that wasn't you.
Maybe you should check your signals on this one: I've limited myself to how Modernism has
damaged Modern English Poetry...and this suggests what?
<snip>
>
> >> >> >> >6) and yet (somewhat contradictorily) any sort of literary device can be used to
> >> >> >> >expand the above posturing so as to make it appear to be a sensible thing to do
> >> >> >>
> >> >> >> You are trying to weight your terms.
> >> >> >
> >> >> > I don't like Modernism.
> >> >>
> >> >> If you cannot define it objectively, I'd say you can't define it. You
> >> >> can merely rant about it.
> >> >
> >> > You seem to be weighting your terms.
> >>
> >> A definition gives the denotation of a word, by (ahem) definition.
> >
> > This is a common problem in NG "communication". The meaning of a word
> >is not the same as any number of dictionary definitions.
>
> Your special meaning may not be, no.
Hmm...no I think this is a problem commonly dreamed of in the realm of Modernist assumptions:
you and the Modernists have a model of aesthetics and language wherein atomizable terms cross from
person to person and are checked against their respective internal dictionaries. In such a model
"definitions" have by definition a special status since we have to have the same definitions in
order to "communicate"....As a non-Modernist, I don't have a model of language that requires such
things.
<snip>
> >
> > So you have embarked on the Modernist Project of trying to restore the
> >purely social unity of thought and meaning and the plenitude of language
> >etc. etc.?
>
> Jesus Christ, no.
>
> I'm one person. I doubt there's any "restoration" of the sort that
> can be done, should be done, or ever would be done. Frankly, I don't
> think it ever existed, so it cannot be restored.
So what's the deal with late 16th century and early 17th c. English Poetry?
>
> I write poetry. I write to an audience. I expect my audience to have
> at least a middling vocabulary and not expect me to rhyme all the
> time.
>
> On the other hand, if I'm writing sonnets, I expect them not to toss
> them out the window, declaring forms to be archaic and boring.
>
Okay, so you're no more Modernist than the next person, but that is still pretty Modernist, as
I think I am beginning to demonstrate.
You never can tell..............................................Pete
JAS Carter
<Peter....@rtp.ppdi.com> wrote:
>> <snip of earlier stuff>
>> >
>> > In the Modernist evaluation/aesthetic, language is one of those signs
>> >of a lost unity of thought and feeling (I refer you to T. S. Eliot for a
>> >lot of beating around the Modernist Bush on this topic)...and poems (a
>> >privileged anti-generic genre from the Modernist point of view) allow a
>> >glimpse of what this primordial unity was like...back in the days of the
>> >Metaphysical Poets (see Eliot on this as well).
>>
>> Sounds like hooey to me.
>
> Sounds like hooey to me too, but you and Eliot share a high regard for the late 16th C. early
>17th century as the high point of some sort of poetic deal.
It wasn't the high point. It was pretty good.
There hasn't been a high point. What do I consider the best bit of
poetry ever written? Macbeth.
What is following a close second and occasionally overcomes it? The
Iliad.
What is my favorite poem? The Iliad.
Close second? The Faerie Queene.
Close third? The Canterbury Tales.
My favorite poets to read if I've only got a minute? Seamus Heaney
and Alexander Pope.
> Of course, you and Eliot are not alone in this...however there is a definite strain in
>Modernism that always upheld that Elizabethan-Jacobean thing up as the unreachable ideal of
>Poetry....and why skip the Romantics?
I don't. Robert Burns is an utter delight, and Blake (not exactly a
romantic) is underrated. I'm no real fan of Wordsworth because it
always feels to me as if he uses forty words where he could use ten.
His lyric poems are often rather fine.
Coleridge is one of my passions, and I recite Kubla Khan nearly every
night before I go to sleep. He was crazy, but then so was Blake.
Shelley was negligible. Byron was overrated in his day and, I think,
a little underrated today. Don Juan is a masterpiece of comedic
verse.
I've never read much Tennyson. He just hasn't fallen my way.
>Eliot on occasion quotes Wordsworth merely to refute
>him...Why?
I have no idea. Eliot was a person, not an ideal. He probably didn't
like Wordsworth.
> Notice that this leaves things a bit obscure as to what exactly poetry is supposed to be doing
>these days, and in fact I would say all those negative things I generally do say about how damaging
>that is and how much damage that suggests has been done by Modernism to Poetry....but I hope my
>point is clear without my having to go back over it in detail.
You're still making all sorts of grand assumptions about what *I*
believe. I do not believe the Elizabethan era was the be all and end
all of poetry, though if you had to pick an era it's as good a one as
any, I suppose.
Fortunately, I don't have to pick an era.
>> > I would like to borrow a bit of the Modernist deal and point out that
>> >this plenitude of meaning and the full functioning of language is a
>> >fantasy.
>>
>> It sounds like a pointless exercise, since I've yet to hear anyone
>> champion it.
>
> So what would you say accounts for the apparently idea state of poetry in the late 16th and
>eraly 17th c.?
Your imagination.
There has never been an ideal state of poetry, though some poets were
capable of writing nearly ideal poems in every era.
>> > A genre is to put it crudely, the social use/definition of a literary
>> >text.
>> >
>> >> I say that poetry is social, not asocial.
>> >
>> > Then language functions perfectly in every poem? Everybody always says
>> >exactly what they mean?
>>
>> Not at all. You require communication to be perfect before it is
>> social?
>>
>> Then "social" cannot apply to any communication.
>
> There is another solution. One can propose that communication is a misleading description of a
>more complex process and suggest for example (very crudely), that the poem is a signal that can be
>decoded via the protocols of a genre.
My niece can read my poetry. She does read it.
>I've suggested that Modernism really does not lend itself to
>an aesthetic that evaluates things like that.
So what?
>I have also suggested that to have no idea what a
>genre is...is both a symptom of the damage done by Modernism and an insidious device of the Evil of
>Modernism itself.
Yes. I am evil personified. Stop me before I take the women and the
children.
>>> Although, I will admit, your use of language is the most "asocial"
>>> I've ever seen, since you seem more intent on failing to communicate
>
>> >> than communicating.
>> >>
>> > I'm writing within the genre of the ng post.
>>
>> But you're not trying to communicate, by your own admission.
>
> No, I'm signaling. You have to do some decoding into your terms.
So, you're being asocial, like you accuse poetry of being. But it's
fine when you do it, but not fine when poets do it.
Just a little bit of hypocrisy to brighten an otherwise dull day?
>> And you bitch about modernists? I'll have to find some somewhere so
>> they can bitch about you for a while.
>
> You're bitching about me, and you are filling in pretty well for Modernism.
Yeah yeah. Only you've yet to find where I agree with your slanted
view of modernism except in thinking that nattering on about genre and
aesthetics is pretty pointless.
>> >> Tell me where what I say fails, not what label you put on it.
>> >
>> > Why? One must expect a very high degree of communications
>> >failures...ie the more social the more the failures
>>
>> You said that poetry isn't social because the communication can fail.
>
> I think that is more the Modernist Line.
It's what you said. I said, "I say that poetry is social, not
asocial."
And you replied, "Then language functions perfectly in every poem?
Everybody always says exactly what they mean?"
This suggests that for something to be "social" it has to be perfect.
Which, of course, means that nothing is social.
>> > Not like you and the Modernists in the imaginary perfect world of
>> >infailible communication as an asocial ideal.
>>
>> I never have stated ANY FUCKING THING about "infailable"
>> communication.
>>
>> Communication of all sorts often fails.
>
> I'd say it fails pretty much by definition. Only you and the Modernists have much hay to make
>on that point.
????
>> Like now, when I'm wondering why the hell you act like you're
>> communicating when you're obviously having your pet monkey just bang
>> on the keyboard. At least, that's what it appears you're doing when
>> you are putting words in my mouth.
>
> But ask yourself a more sophisticated question: why would I want my pet monkey to seem to do
>this? What does the monkey-seeming do?
Bollocks. Why have I wasted my time with you?
>> There is nothing approaching "perfection" in any work of poetry that
>> I've ever read, with the possible exception of Macbeth for which I am
>> incapable of imagining improvement.
>>
>> But then, I've got the hots for the Elizabethans. What can I say?
>
> see above (re: You, the Modernists and the ideal state of late 16th and early 17th c poetry)
No ideal state. Got a reading comprehension problem, do you?
>> >> You hate modernism, then define everything I say as modernism without
>> >> ever saying
>> >>
>> >> 1. How it fits the definition, or
>> >> 2. how your opinion differs.
>> >
>> > I don't hate modernism...I just think it has been very bad for poetry.
>>
>> Someone hates modernism. Maybe that wasn't you.
>
> Maybe you should check your signals on this one: I've limited myself to how Modernism has
>damaged Modern English Poetry...and this suggests what?
That you're a bloody ass who redefines terms as you wish and who
doesn't give a rat's ass what the person to whom you are speaking is
saying as long as you've got your gong to bang?
>> > So you have embarked on the Modernist Project of trying to restore the
>> >purely social unity of thought and meaning and the plenitude of language
>> >etc. etc.?
>>
>> Jesus Christ, no.
>>
>> I'm one person. I doubt there's any "restoration" of the sort that
>> can be done, should be done, or ever would be done. Frankly, I don't
>> think it ever existed, so it cannot be restored.
>
>So what's the deal with late 16th century and early 17th c. English Poetry?
It wasn't ideal. It was nice. It was very nice.
So was the 19th century.
Oh, and 200 BCE.
And whenever Homer wrote... he's enough to recommend an era all on his
own.
>> I write poetry. I write to an audience. I expect my audience to have
>> at least a middling vocabulary and not expect me to rhyme all the
>> time.
>>
>> On the other hand, if I'm writing sonnets, I expect them not to toss
>> them out the window, declaring forms to be archaic and boring.
>
> Okay, so you're no more Modernist than the next person, but that is still pretty Modernist, as
>I think I am beginning to demonstrate.
Only if you're the next person.
Since you're the only person who can know how you're defining terms,
and you keep using phrases that fall right in line with your
definition of modernism, I think it fits you pretty well.
After all, you're the one arguing that the Elizabethan poets were
ideal.
You're the one arguing that language fails, and poetry is asocial.
Sounds like you need anti-modernist therapy.
Sunbeam the Deacon
JAS Carter wrote:
>
> On Sat, 15 Jan 2000 13:13:25 -0500, Peter Hickman
> <Peter....@rtp.ppdi.com> wrote:
>
> >> <snip of earlier stuff>
> >> >
> >> > In the Modernist evaluation/aesthetic, language is one of those signs
> >> >of a lost unity of thought and feeling (I refer you to T. S. Eliot for a
> >> >lot of beating around the Modernist Bush on this topic)...and poems (a
> >> >privileged anti-generic genre from the Modernist point of view) allow a
> >> >glimpse of what this primordial unity was like...back in the days of the
> >> >Metaphysical Poets (see Eliot on this as well).
> >>
> >> Sounds like hooey to me.
> >
> > Sounds like hooey to me too, but you and Eliot share a high regard for the late 16th C. early
> >17th century as the high point of some sort of poetic deal.
>
> It wasn't the high point. It was pretty good.
>
> There hasn't been a high point. What do I consider the best bit of
> poetry ever written? Macbeth.
Well, that falls right in the middle of the end-of-16th century start
of 17th c. bracket so.....
>
> What is following a close second and occasionally overcomes it? The
> Iliad.
>
> What is my favorite poem? The Iliad.
Is there a translation that's your fave or do you read Homeric Greek?
Or both?
>
> Close second? The Faerie Queene.
That's quite a feat. I mean, I can't read it at all.
> Close third? The Canterbury Tales.
Another feat.....
>
<snip re mostly the Romantics.........>
> > Notice that this leaves things a bit obscure as to what exactly poetry is supposed to be doing
> >these days, and in fact I would say all those negative things I generally do say about how damaging
> >that is and how much damage that suggests has been done by Modernism to Poetry....but I hope my
> >point is clear without my having to go back over it in detail.
>
> You're still making all sorts of grand assumptions about what *I*
> believe. I do not believe the Elizabethan era was the be all and end
> all of poetry, though if you had to pick an era it's as good a one as
> any, I suppose.
>
> Fortunately, I don't have to pick an era.
Right...that might imply some kind of aesthetic and we know nobody
needs that...not after Modernism anyway....
<snip>
> >>
> >> Then "social" cannot apply to any communication.
> >
> > There is another solution. One can propose that communication is a misleading description of a
> >more complex process and suggest for example (very crudely), that the poem is a signal that can be
> >decoded via the protocols of a genre.
>
> My niece can read my poetry. She does read it.
>
> >I've suggested that Modernism really does not lend itself to
> >an aesthetic that evaluates things like that.
>
> So what?
Ask your niece?
<snip of evil>
> >> >>
> >> > I'm writing within the genre of the ng post.
> >>
> >> But you're not trying to communicate, by your own admission.
> >
> > No, I'm signaling. You have to do some decoding into your terms.
>
> So, you're being asocial, like you accuse poetry of being. But it's
> fine when you do it, but not fine when poets do it.
>
> Just a little bit of hypocrisy to brighten an otherwise dull day?
This isn't a poem...check your genres....
>
> >> And you bitch about modernists? I'll have to find some somewhere so
> >> they can bitch about you for a while.
> >
> > You're bitching about me, and you are filling in pretty well for Modernism.
>
> Yeah yeah. Only you've yet to find where I agree with your slanted
> view of modernism except in thinking that nattering on about genre and
> aesthetics is pretty pointless.
So you're Modernist in terms of your evaluation of genre and your
aesthetics.
This is what I've been suggesting all along.
>
> >> >> Tell me where what I say fails, not what label you put on it.
> >> >
> >> > Why? One must expect a very high degree of communications
> >> >failures...ie the more social the more the failures
> >>
> >> You said that poetry isn't social because the communication can fail.
> >
> > I think that is more the Modernist Line.
>
> It's what you said. I said, "I say that poetry is social, not
> asocial."
>
> And you replied, "Then language functions perfectly in every poem?
> Everybody always says exactly what they mean?"
>
> This suggests that for something to be "social" it has to be perfect.
>
> Which, of course, means that nothing is social.
Nothing is inherently social. The realm of the social is the realm of
conventions not magic events.
>
> >> > Not like you and the Modernists in the imaginary perfect world of
> >> >infailible communication as an asocial ideal.
> >>
> >> I never have stated ANY FUCKING THING about "infailable"
> >> communication.
> >>
> >> Communication of all sorts often fails.
> >
> > I'd say it fails pretty much by definition. Only you and the Modernists have much hay to make
> >on that point.
>
> ????
That's right.
> >> Like now, when I'm wondering why the hell you act like you're
> >> communicating when you're obviously having your pet monkey just bang
> >> on the keyboard. At least, that's what it appears you're doing when
> >> you are putting words in my mouth.
> >
> > But ask yourself a more sophisticated question: why would I want my pet monkey to seem to do
> >this? What does the monkey-seeming do?
>
> Bollocks. Why have I wasted my time with you?
You tell me.
> >> There is nothing approaching "perfection" in any work of poetry that
> >> I've ever read, with the possible exception of Macbeth for which I am
> >> incapable of imagining improvement.
> >>
> >> But then, I've got the hots for the Elizabethans. What can I say?
> >
> > see above (re: You, the Modernists and the ideal state of late 16th and early 17th c poetry)
>
> No ideal state. Got a reading comprehension problem, do you?
Macbeth (the exception) is in that ideal time frame.
>
> >> >> You hate modernism, then define everything I say as modernism without
> >> >> ever saying
> >> >>
> >> >> 1. How it fits the definition, or
> >> >> 2. how your opinion differs.
> >> >
> >> > I don't hate modernism...I just think it has been very bad for poetry.
> >>
> >> Someone hates modernism. Maybe that wasn't you.
> >
> > Maybe you should check your signals on this one: I've limited myself to how Modernism has
> >damaged Modern English Poetry...and this suggests what?
>
> That you're a bloody ass who redefines terms as you wish and who
> doesn't give a rat's ass what the person to whom you are speaking is
> saying as long as you've got your gong to bang?
So?
> >> > So you have embarked on the Modernist Project of trying to restore the
> >> >purely social unity of thought and meaning and the plenitude of language
> >> >etc. etc.?
<snip>
> >> I write poetry. I write to an audience. I expect my audience to have
> >> at least a middling vocabulary and not expect me to rhyme all the
> >> time.
> >>
> >> On the other hand, if I'm writing sonnets, I expect them not to toss
> >> them out the window, declaring forms to be archaic and boring.
> >
> > Okay, so you're no more Modernist than the next person, but that is still pretty Modernist, as
> >I think I am beginning to demonstrate.
>
> Only if you're the next person.
>
> Since you're the only person who can know how you're defining terms,
> and you keep using phrases that fall right in line with your
> definition of modernism, I think it fits you pretty well.
I'm trying to define what I find has done damage to poetry and it seems
to be Modernism. You just repeat the Modernist idea that genre and
aesthetics don't matter and then go on about your business.
> After all, you're the one arguing that the Elizabethan poets were
> ideal.
Why would I do that? I just thought you might offer some kind of
aesthetic evaluation...but I guess not.
> You're the one arguing that language fails, and poetry is asocial.
Nope. Language doesn't fail. Communication fails. You and the
Modernists confuse the two.
>
> Sounds like you need anti-modernist therapy.
>
Yes...just like all poets and readers of poetry.