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Patricia,
I think metrics are borne from language and are an organic part of the language (any) used by the poet. I don't think they are a matter of abstract study. That is the point as far as I'm concerned. I have said that I don't believe it's possible to "translate" a haiku as I understand the meaning of translate. Adelaide Crapsey obviously agreed with me that the English Haiku is unsatisfactory as a concept but she failed to see that English poetry doesn't need to imitate Japanese forms. It can draw upon Japanese aesthetics without counting its toes. The first aesthetic principle for Japanese is truth to materials and that includes language. In the case of an evolved form like Haiku that is very true. Modern Japanese culture is another thing and that is for the Japanese to sort out. I think her approach was wrong-headed. I know astrologers who study but it doesn't make me respect them. Sorry to be difficult. That's just my personal slant. I do believe that good poetry can happen anywhere in spite of profound studies in English metrics ;) Janet [This message has been edited by Janet Kenny (edited April 17, 2005).] |
Well, if nothing else, this thread has made me go do research and gain a new appreciation of Adelaide Crapsey and the cinquain, which before today I'd regarded as a quaint listing in my Poetry Handbook.
There's a very nice essay with examples of her work I found, both of which I'd recommend. And I have to say I like Crapsey's original cinquains as well as I like any of the classic haikus, which is to say, I consider them interesting reflections on the world. As for formally studying metrics, doing so is hardly a novelty, but the same as linguistics, is a perfectly legitimate field. In the end, what can be said is the same as many poets before her, Crapsey devised a form to her personal liking and taste and wrote the poems she wanted to in it--and dying of TB at thirty-six certainly gave her some inspiration--and the form struck enough folk as something they liked as well that it's continued, like sapphics and so on. Though I think Crapsey's cinquains are scads better than the thing about the fireflies. |
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Anyway . . . I, too "...believe that good poetry can happen anywhere in spite of profound studies in English metrics." . . . despite the fact that, more often than not, it's [ **cough** ] that happens! |
Oops! Duplicate post. Sorry 'bout that.
[This message has been edited by Patricia A. Marsh (edited April 17, 2005).] |
Patricia,
I think she might have agreed about truth to materials. Watch the Iron Chef to see what I mean ;) Janet |
What's "the Iron Chef", Janet?
= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = [ **groan** ] Nevermind! Did a google.com. Can't believe that there's actually a battle of the chefs TV show. Not in these here parts, however! [This message has been edited by Patricia A. Marsh (edited April 17, 2005).] |
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Patricia,
It was HUGE in America. Actually there's serious information and very polished cooking but it's presentation is very high camp. If you care about food it's definitely worth watching. If you want a funny show ditto. Janet PS: And watch this movie ;) Tampopo Last link failed. [This message has been edited by Janet Kenny (edited April 17, 2005).] |
Janet: But good use of traditional form is simply as natural as syntax - so is bad use. And we grow used to old things, they become naturalised. The fact that they're old suggests that they're of some use otherwise they wouldn't have survived - they're a safe option. But while using old forms I think we should also experiment with discarded ones and test the viability of new inventions. Forms that one can hear have the best chance (e.g. sonnet), followed by those that depend on spelling (e.g. Acrostics), then those that one can only see (e.g. syllabics), followed by those that readers need to be told about. Some forms are more useful to the writer than the reader; they're rules that help generate content but leave no trace. See http://education.guardian.co.uk/high...458799,00.html
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Tim,
I was speaking exclusivley of successful poems written in traditional forms. Of course bad poems are part of the inheritance and inbuilt conditioning. I will read that link. Thanks. (Yikes! I've read it. I remember when that absurd work innocent of Es emerged. I long to use words which might bring a blush to the nicely raised in our midst. I really understand sometimes why the Chinese sent intellectuals to work in the rice fields.) I mistrust an approach to poetry that leans too far towards the intellect. I prefer the senses and the subconscious with a little help from the brain when necessary. My own poems are not written to be read aloud, but to be read "aloud" internally. Janet [This message has been edited by Janet Kenny (edited April 18, 2005).] |
Maybe the Iron Chef <u>was</u>, as you say, "...HUGE in America." Wouldn't know about that. No cable TV here. Rooftop antenna just fine when ya live on the third-highest hilltop in the County.
(Ps-ss-st! Sh-h. Don't let on that I told you so, Janet, but most rural West Virginia coalfield citizens live in a Third-World country. And rumour has it that "...very high camp." means the highest hill is reserved for the Company boss's house.) Yeah! You guessed it: I need some sleep. 'night! Quote:
[This message has been edited by Patricia A. Marsh (edited April 18, 2005).] |
Janet,
I feel your statement that a non-Japanese can't write a haiku needs more justification. I became interested in haiku and other oriental short forms and joined some dedicated lists where both Japanese and non-Japanese authors post. I confess that I have read hundreds and hundreds, if not thousands and thousands, of utterly boring, drab haiku, senryu, cinquains etc, and very few that I considered successful. I once complained that most of the ku seemed to have been written by born-again florists. The problem is that many people are drawn to these forms because they look easy--they don't appreciate the extreme difficulty of writing a good one. I mentioned elsewhere that I thought the 'spontaneity' of a haiku was often overlooked. It is not like the reflective Western Romantic tradition of 'emotion recollected in tranquillity'. With haiku, I feel the poem should feel like an immediate response to the experience--it is a celebration of the now-ness of experience. That 'spontaneity' takes enormous craft and many years to master, I suspect. If a cinquain is regarded as a Western form of the haiku, I think it requires that quality of the oriental form. I don't usually post my own poems in General threads, but hope you will forgive me posting this one, firstly because it is a rhyming cinquain, and secondly, to lighten the mood..... The Etcetera Cinquain "We do not accept rhyming poetry, greeting-card verse, poems about vampires, etc." (From the submission details of Pebble Lake Review.) Mid night: again the thirst. My love, I am accursed-- I will repent, recant, but first one bite. Regards, Maz |
Ah Patricia. I watched the "Iron Chef" and "Tampopo" on Australian public television;)
Australian TV notice G'nite, Janet Edited back to say I think it's OK to say Adelaide Crapsey agreed with me though it would be better to say I agreed with her;) [This message has been edited by Janet Kenny (edited April 18, 2005).] |
Tim,
Intriguing link. I was thinking, as a particularly cruel challenge, to challenge folk to write sestinas using the next set of random words generated as masking by the next email spam I received. Of course, the moment I thought of it, I received a spam letter, where the "Engrish" is almost as surreal as the random text. Here's the random text: scantier! denizen, nouns kneeling diffusers. Slovenia! infants, slows Kronecker reopened. prophecy! logged, downstream sewed implore. tiling! artichoke, braided vagrant tutors. blueberry! gagged, fiction Boers inscribed. droops! rises, truant unlike million. That's enough for five different cruel sestinas. Here is the sexy "Engrish" that came with it. I've added line breaks to make it more poetic, a "found poem": "welcome to my prison! Orientals" [This message has been edited by Kevin Andrew Murphy (edited April 18, 2005).] |
Love your vampire poem Maz!! I don't deny that good poems may spring up anywhere.
I can't justify my crazy theories more than I have done already and far be it from me to spoil anyone's pleasure. I think my singing days may have some effect on my sense of language and form. I became morbidly aware of musical translations that obliged the singer to emote on "the". I love the idea of spontaneous poems which trap images and ideas. I just think they need not be corseted in a self conscious jelly mould. I love your "born-again florists". I bet there's some phony decadent stuff in Japanese. I have recently read some of your FV poems with immense admiration but lacked the time to say so. I am in awe. I write naturally in trad form. I just do. If I had to count everything I'd give up. I used to write more free poems and feel that once this time of tension is over I'll write some more. Janet ..... Kevin, You're unstoppable ;) Janet [This message has been edited by Janet Kenny (edited April 18, 2005).] |
In Western culture in the 19th Century verse writing peaked as a popular way to pass the time, not just for poets or aspiring poets, but for people in their day to day lives, and it was used with versalitity. People even wrote verse because it was easier for them than to compose whole paragraphs of prose. In cultures where people often sing the metrics and the rhyme in poetry come easily. And that was the case throughout Western culture until the 20th Century took hold. Poetry writing as a common practice continued to flourish in pockets of culture where singing also flourished, such as many parts of the American South. Those days are long gone. Metrics hold an association in the mind with a bygone time that many people feel should be restored. But the reality is that free verse began in the same Victorian era, in the middle of the 19th Century because versalitity in poetry flourished then. Free verse parallels in use, influence, and necessity, free indirect discourse in fiction. Free verse should more accurately be called free indirect verse because what's free is the discourse in the poem. Leaves of Grass has the equivalent role in poetry to Madame Bovary in fiction. This is not going to be undone. Free verse does not require the poetic equivalent of stream of consciousness or poetic dadaism or anything highly experimental. The fact that everyone who writes at all right now has to live with is that the literary arts are shrinking in influence and use in Western culture, without any sign of a reversal. Metricists who are serious about aspiring to write very good poetry, that's when metrics become formalism, are competing for a shrinking pool of crumbs left from the poetic pie with the poets who are continuing to take the greater risks with free indirect verse. I think the competition gets strange when Western metricists and Western free verse poets are competing over haiku. There's probably nothing stranger going on in Western poetry than metricists and free verse poets competing over the definition of haiku; which has no discourse, no narrative, no rhyme, no mythology, no meter, no cadence; in Western terms. [This message has been edited by albert geiser (edited April 18, 2005).] |
Janet, I have no Japanese, but I believe the essence of haiku and senryu resides in their images, which can — though doubtless less well — be rendered in languages other than Japanese.
I thought you had allowed yourself to become persuaded of that during Lee Gurga’s stint in Lariat, and indeed I recall that you wrote a couple of English Haiku yourself, one of which Lee was going to publish. It will be interesting to see whether you participate again when he returns this year, and whether you raise your objections to the form with him! Henry |
Henry,
I thought it over and decided that I have always treasured those same elements in all of my poetry and that the restrictions of the posture did not add anything to that particular search in English poetry. I won't raise those objections with Mr Gurga again because I am sure he finds fulfilment and depth in his own approach to Haiku. It is his personal search and of course I respect that. His knowledge is something to respect. The same is true of my dear friend Wiley Clements. I have come to doubt that it is much use for non--Japanese poets unless they so lack an ability to identify with experience they need a zen whack on the head--in which case I wonder why they want to write in the first place. Janet PS: Henry, I've just noticed the exclamation mark at the end. Is that a letter from "Outraged of Penge"? [This message has been edited by Janet Kenny (edited April 18, 2005).] |
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Ah well, not a new thing with the internet. What is new is that the internet has caused a blossoming of epistolary writing not seen since the English Regency, except we're not characters in Jane Austen novels. This is open to everyone, and everyone is writing and, among other things, posting their poetry. After all, where else do you think all those second-rate haikus and cinquains are coming from? I think it's also nonsense that the literary arts are shrinking. Television has made theatre run 24/7 in people's living rooms, and everything on tv was written by someone, including the "reality" shows. I have shelves around me collapsing with the weight of books, some of which I've even written, and I just turned in a couple critical essays based on television shows I watch--one of them last night, in fact, that had a plot twist which I'll likely have to address in a second draft of one of the essays. Ah well. Folk no longer gather round the piano in the saloon for an old-fashioned sing-along. Now the bars have kareoke nights. Exactly how is that different, aside from less employment for piano players? Novels are a popular artform of the past two hundred years. Read Jane Austen's rant in Northanger Abbey about the status of novelists (as opposed to poets) at the time and look at the popularity of such books now. Poetry? Throw a rock and you'll hit it, even today. [This message has been edited by Kevin Andrew Murphy (edited April 18, 2005).] |
Kevin- If you want to throw a rock to reach poetry, the rock has to go through a visual medium. Literature isn't going away, but it's subordinate now to the visual medium. That doesn't mean the arts are worse off, just that literature is. Karaoke isn't complete without a video screen and words at the bottom of the screen. Most people in the West today would not reply to the question, "What did you do last night?" with "I wrote poetry." Even if one did write poetry last night, you just know it's better to only tell certain confidants, and otherwise everyone else one knows will give you weird looks. It's especially not wise to talk about having written poetry last night in the workplace. Whereas, it would have been a common reply in the mid 19th Century to say. "I wrote poetry last night." Try talking about cinquains to some gossipy coworker in a nearby cubicle. The same people who were calling French fries American fries are the ones who make the audience for American Idol. It's a risk to talk about poetry in public, let alone make it publicly known that one writes poetry. It's true that the epistolary form has been flourishing lately, without many people knowing that's what they're doing. But links are becoming a necessity with this epistolary era. and the links connect the new letter writing to the visual medium. E mail is frequently as incomplete without a visual link as karaoke is without a video. [This message has been edited by albert geiser (edited April 18, 2005).] |
Albert,
I always tell people I write poetry. It gives you an ace in the hole, they feel I might be writing about them. Bobby |
Janet, your response seems to patronise those of us who find some pleasure in reading (or trying to write) haiku. Apparently you know better.
If a haiku type of sensibility or juxtaposition of images produces some pleasing poems in English, why attack the idea on theoretical grounds? I don’t think you did voice those objections to Lee Gurga last year, or at least not publicly in this thread where you posted two haiku of your own. If you’re so convinced we are all wrong, surely you owe it to him to put him right too? Re the cinquain, as Patricia has mentioned a couple of times, Crapsey conceived it as a metrical form (1,2,3,4,1 beats) and it subsequently (in Turco’s words) evolved into a syllabic form, somewhat analogous to the Japanese tanka. I don’t know if that “evolving” was by Crapsey’s choice, but I suspect not. The examples of her work over on the other thread include some which, because of metrical variation, don’t fit the 2,4,6,8,2 syllabic pattern but do maintain the 1,2,3,4,1 beat pattern. Here are a couple of them. The Guarded Wound If it Were lighter touch Than petal of flower resting On grass, oh still too heavy it were, Too heavy! Fate Defied As it Were tissue of silver I'll wear, O fate, thy grey, And go mistily radiant, clad Like the moon. The first has 2,4,8,9,3 syllables, the second 2,6,6,9,3, but obviously the metrical 1,2,3,4,1 pattern is maintained in both. So it seems clear Crapsey was treating this as a metrical, not a syllabic form when she wrote those pieces. These examples do illustrate what I would say is the real weakness of the form — the L1-2 break can easily seem forced and unnatural after such a short line. Someone has already commented on the line-break difficulties, but this L1-2 seems to be the major problem. Both the above poems would read better to me with L1 and L2 run together. Henry [This message has been edited by Henry Quince (edited April 18, 2005).] |
Henry,
I don't think it's fair to describe a different point of view as "patronising". That would end all serious discussion about anything. I had to explain my point of view. Indeed I was asked to enlarge upon it. It is a sincere point of view. Others think differently. That's fine. Actually I did raise exactly the same points to Mr Gurga. There were several threads. I don't know which you have saved but it is apparently not one of those in which I clearly voiced my present opinion. I didn't persist because it was his discipline and I was merely an interested participant. I sincerely respect his dedication and intimate knowledge of Japanese Haiku. Janet [This message has been edited by Janet Kenny (edited April 18, 2005).] |
Albert,
I don't work in a cube farm, but I suspect that the 19th century "I wrote poetry last night" is the same as the housemate I had in college who proclaimed "I'm a poet," then became rather aghast when I asked to read his latest poem and he hadn't written any for two or three years--whereas I'd written one only last week and wasn't going around proclaiming myself a poet. To him, being a poet was a good excuse to wear black and hang out in the cool coffee house. That is to say, a matter of fashion. That poetry isn't fashionable in the land of cubicles? So what? Fashions change, but I really don't see much difference between American Idol and a Victorian music hall stage. Fact is, the folk in the next cube were going home to a night of minstrels singing popular songs and standards, which do have lyrics. Saying that the world of literature--by which you mean the printed word--is subordinate to the rest of the arts is to beg the question: In Jane Austen's day, were there no theatres? Concerts? Dances? Did everyone sit around and read and write poetry all day? Was Abe Lincoln shot while attending one of Emily Dickinson's public and highly promoted poetry readings... Uh, wait, she was this crazy spinster who only published a handful of her poems during her life, and shut the rest up in a bureau drawer, right? And Lincoln was shot at the theatre by a popular handsome actor? I don't buy that you have to pierce the visual--or auditory--medium to get to the written, not when Barnes and Noble has created bookstores that feel like palaces or at least luxury hotels. There's obviously a whole lot of people who still like books and still read them, and I don't think the number is getting fewer. |
Janet, you said this:
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Henry |
Henry
_______________ Janet, you said this: I have come to doubt that it is much use for non--Japanese poets unless they so lack an ability to identify with experience they need a zen whack on the head--in which case I wonder why they want to write in the first place. What’s that if not patronising? Henry _____________ How about silly? (Why didn't the quote copy?) Janet PPS: I wanted to say here what I said to Henry in a private communication. I feel something like veneration for Japanese art forms and their respect for natural qualities of materials. [This message has been edited by Janet Kenny (edited April 18, 2005).] |
Janet said:
PPS: I wanted to say here what I said to Henry in a private communication. "...feel something like veneration for Japanese arts forms and their respect for <u>natural</u> qualities of materials."? That is heavy, Janet! But . . . I wonder if you feel the same way about all Japanese art forms. How, for instance, would you venerate the Art of Bonzai, considering that it doesn't show too much "respect" for the "natural qualities" of a tree? There's nothing "natural" about any "art", Janet, Japanese or otherwise. And when it comes to that "truth in materials"? [ **cough** ]. Edited to note that "truth in materials" is an incorrectly remembered and, therefore, a misquote of something Janet said. Quote should have been "truth <u>to</u> materials". Sorry, Janet! <u>My</u> bad. http://www.ablemuse.com/erato/ubbhtml/redface.gif [This message has been edited by Patricia A. Marsh (edited April 19, 2005).] |
Patricia, I do draw the line at bonsai and ikebana--although both can be very beautiful at their best. Not what I meant. I like their rock gardens and the architecture in which they use no nails and let the joinery show as a part of the beauty. I also love their music and physical movement. I think things have become very debased--especially modern Japanese pottery, but their finest pots are still superb. They have, at their best a great respect for the inherent textures and qualities of things. They exploit those natural qualities to achieve their goals. Janet |
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But . . . how is any of that relevant to the Art of Haiku? Other than the season-words, what are the "natural qualities" of haiku? No need to reply, Janet. If I'm not mistaken, the subject of this thread--started by Brother Joyous Hydrogen Bomb of Temperance--is "Three Minute Poetry: The Cinquain". Haven't you noticed that <u>he</u> is sorta layin' low? Chicken[** cough ** ]?! [This message has been edited by Patricia A. Marsh (edited April 19, 2005).] |
Patricia:
But . . . how is any of that relevant to the Art of Haiku? Other than the season-words, what are the "natural qualities" of haiku? Language. The natural grain of language ;) Back to the pool of astral elation. Janet Over and out. Sorry Michael. [This message has been edited by Janet Kenny (edited April 19, 2005).] |
Albert,
You seem to like to make sweeping statements, but where is your authority for: 'Whereas, it would have been a common reply in the mid 19th Century to say. "I wrote poetry last night." ' ? Actually, apart from a small moneyed class, who had the leisure, as well as the inclination, I suspect most people were far too busy working long hard hours, trying to make a crust to keep them and their families alive to have time to write poetry. I find it interesting that you specify writing poetry, rather than reading poetry, but this needs a separate thread, I think. Regards, Maz |
Janet, I think language can be said to be artificial, though I don't really like making distinctions between natural and artificial phenomena - they only make sense from our perspective, not objectively.
Alex |
grasshopper- Sure, I can find sources for you on how poetry writing was a common practice in the 19th Century. Offhand I have here the foreward to a recent translation of Heinrich Heine's love poems, translated by Walter W. Arndt, with the foreward by Jeffrey L. Sammons: "... In those days Germany was full of verse, Everyone wrote it, from schoolchildren to government ministers, even the King of Bavaria, and, if possible, published it in Almanacs, calendars, journals, and newspapers. It had become too easy to write; the ubiquity dulled critical discrimination..." You would find it was the same throughout Europe. I believe that in the U.S. there was relatively less verse writing. Americans fell in love with the camera. However, verse was still much more frequently written in the U.S. then than now. But academic criticism had not been a part of American life to be dulled in the first place. Nevertheless, American literature was at a high point circa 1850, and I'll bet you more American Presidents wrote verse for pleasure in that period through Abraham Lincoln, than since. You can catch me in one of my sweeping statements sometime, but not this one... [This message has been edited by albert geiser (edited April 19, 2005).] |
Alexander, But we are programmed with our birth language. Poetry begins there I think. Well poetry that pleases me anyway. I'm not saying we can't experiment with language. It's just that the umbilical is the birth language. Janet |
Hello ‘Sphreians:
When working with any type of form, I try to see how the form ought to be used to best advantage. It seems like the features of the form ought to be able to define the form to some extent. The obvious features of the cinquain are the gradually increasing line lengths, followed by a sudden decrease: 2-4-6-8-2 syllables, or, as I’ve heard it is more correctly 1-2-3-4-1 stresses, preferably iambic (though AC herself did not rigorously stick to iambics). I assume relief feet could be applied in this form as in any iambic form, though obviously with less opportunity due to the brevity. The increasing line length followed by the cut off implies lines of increasing importance, or weight, followed by…something—say a turn, an ironic twist, a throwback to the first line, a letdown, or some kind of tension/anticipation between lines 4 and 5, created by the choice of word to break on. As has been stated by others, the form itself is perhaps neither inherently good nor bad. It is suitable for some subjects, and unsuitable for others. It has challenges that other forms don’t. No, it can’t achieve the melodic rhythm of a sonnet nicely crafted. Not can it have the repeating beauty of a villanelle. But it can maximize tension between lines. It can provide a sharp twist or turn, or highlight the use of irony. It can demonstrate how brevity is sometimes superior to…the alternative. It seems like it is one more form to add to the poet’s toolbox. If you don’t like it, don’t use it. I don’t like free verse, and I don’t use it, but I don't denigrate it. Perhaps someday I’ll grow up and add free verse to my toolbox. I do like the challenge that cinquains give: writing metrical verse that maximizes the use of line breaks and seeks to select subject, phrases, and words that fit the form—or that the form fits. It is a shame that Adelaide Crapsey died so young. Who knows what she might have done with the form if she had lived a few more decades. Best Regards, DAT [This message has been edited by David A Todd (edited April 20, 2005).] |
Hi, Maz.
I think it depended where you were. There was an unusual degree of cultural development among the young women working in the factories in New England; in the city of Lowell, Massachusetts, the "mill-girls" had their own literary magazine, publishing fiction, non-fiction, and a whole lot of poetry. They lived in boarding-houses whose parlors boasted pianos or pianolas, and many of them attended lectures at the local lyceums. (In the mid-19th century, New England boasted the highest literacy rates in the world, and exported schoolteachers to the rest of America.) Dickens, who had witnessed the squalor of English factory workers' lives in Manchester and Birmingham, writes with amazement of all this in his "American Notes." The fact that he was so amazed by it, of course, suggests the degree to which these conditions were the exception rather than the rule throughout Anglophonia. I suspect there's at least as much truth to your position as to Albert's. -Peter (apologies to all for further digression from thread topic) |
Albert,
'Everyone wrote it, from schoolchildren to government ministers, even the King of Bavaria,' Overlooking the obvious hyperbole there, there is that whole spectrum of people between schoolchildren (who are still made to write poetry as part of their education) and the genteel and aristocratic classes. What of the working class who were busy working and labouring? And even if I accepted as a fact that Everyone in Germany at that time was writing poetry, I don't see that can be simply extrapolated to the whole of Europe, with all its varied educational and social systems. Michael, I've just read some of the latest issue of Amaze, and I must say I've moved closer to your position on cinquains--lol. I'm not at all impressed. Regards, Maz |
I think Maz has it right regarding the monied classes of the 19th century and the writing (and reading) of poetry, though to find what actual attitudes were, perhaps it might be best to turn to a period source?
From Jane Austen: <STRIKE>Capable Anne Elliot quickly rushed to his aid, casting an irritated glance at the naval hero who was looking on in total ineptitude, and instructed Mr Ferrars to carry Caroline to the nearest farmhouse where she was put to bed. She then sent him off to fetch the apothecary post haste. When he returned and the apothecary said Caroline could not be moved, Anne Elliot swiftly pulled a book of sonnets from her reticule, handed them to a bewildered Mr Ferrars, and ordered him to sit watch over Miss Bingley until what time she should awake. Edward Ferrars took her at her word, and was two weeks in that chair. Long enough to have memorised all the poems in the book; he had accomplished this by reading them out loud, and later Marianne Dashwood was heard to say that Miss Bingley should have woken much sooner if he had desisted. He did have a very lack-lustre reading style. and elsewhere:</STRIKE> {Note: Perils of web research. The above is not from Austen herself, but a really good imitation from a novel called "Sofie" published at the Austen.com website . Thanks to Peter for the catch. The later two are actually from Northanger Abbey, however.} So far her improvement was sufficient -- and in many other points she came on exceedingly well; for though she could not write sonnets, she brought herself to read them; and though there seemed no chance of her throwing a whole party into raptures by a prelude on the pianoforte, of her own composition, she could listen to other people's performance with very little fatigue. and Jane Austen in rant mode about the poetry publications of the time: The progress of the friendship between Catherine and Isabella was quick as its beginning had been warm, and they passed so rapidly through every gradation of increasing tenderness that there was shortly no fresh proof of it to be given to their friends or themselves. They called each other by their Christian name, were always arm in arm when they walked, pinned up each other's train for the dance, and were not to be divided in the set; and if a rainy morning deprived them of other enjoyments, they were still resolute in meeting in defiance of wet and dirt, and shut themselves up, to read novels together. Yes, novels; for I will not adopt that ungenerous and impolitic custom so common with novel-writers, of degrading by their contemptuous censure the very performances, to the number of which they are themselves adding -- joining with their greatest enemies in bestowing the harshest epithets on such works, and scarcely ever permitting them to be read by their own heroine, who, if she accidentally take up a novel, is sure to turn over its insipid pages with disgust. Alas! If the heroine of one novel be not patronized by the heroine of another, from whom can she expect protection and regard? I cannot approve of it. Let us leave it to the reviewers to abuse such effusions of fancy at their leisure, and over every new novel to talk in threadbare strains of the trash with which the press now groans. Let us not desert one another; we are an injured body. Although our productions have afforded more extensive and unaffected pleasure than those of any other literary corporation in the world, no species of composition has been so much decried. From pride, ignorance, or fashion, our foes are almost as many as our readers. And while the abilities of the nine-hundredth abridger of the History of England, or of the man who collects and publishes in a volume some dozen lines of Milton, Pope, and Prior, with a paper from the Spectator, and a chapter from Sterne, are eulogized by a thousand pens -- there seems almost a general wish of decrying the capacity and undervaluing the labour of the novelist, and of slighting the performances which have only genius, wit, and taste to recommend them. "I am no novel-reader -- I seldom look into novels -- Do not imagine that I often read novels -- It is really very well for a novel." Such is the common cant. "And what are you reading, Miss -- ?" "Oh! It is only a novel!" replies the young lady, while she lays down her book with affected indifference, or momentary shame. "It is only Cecilia, or Camilla, or Belinda"; or, in short, only some work in which the greatest powers of the mind are displayed, in which the most thorough knowledge of human nature, the happiest delineation of its varieties, the liveliest effusions of wit and humour, are conveyed to the world in the best-chosen language. Now, had the same young lady been engaged with a volume of the Spectator, instead of such a work, how proudly would she have produced the book, and told its name; though the chances must be against her being occupied by any part of that voluminous publication, of which either the matter or manner would not disgust a young person of taste: the substance of its papers so often consisting in the statement of improbable circumstances, unnatural characters, and topics of conversation which no longer concern anyone living; and their language, too, frequently so coarse as to give no very favourable idea of the age that could endure it. I think Austen reports, quite credibly, that at the cusp of the 18th-19th century (the above from Northanger Abbey, scheduled for publication in 1803, but as I can say as a novelist, obviously started sometime earlier), that the practice of reading and writing poetry was considered genteel and fashionable, but not generally something that people actually did in everyday life, even those of the leisure and monied classes. An awful lot like today, in fact. [This message has been edited by Kevin Andrew Murphy (edited April 20, 2005).] |
Actually the last piece of writing Austen did--written three days before her death--was a piece of very amusing light verse about St. Swithin. And she was a big fan of Cowper.
I don't think she's decrying verse so much as she is defending her turf as a novelist, particularly as a writer of domestic comedies, not precisely the hottest genre of fiction at the time. |
The strange thing is that while people don't talk about it that much, most people I know either write or have written some poetry, and when I mention the subject, again a majority of people will cite a favourite poet or poem - often Tennyson, Poe, Plath, Shelly, Yeats, Benjamin Zephania, Lear, Byron, Shakespeare, Rossetti, Larkin etc etc.
I think people do have an appetite for poetry, but other media forms such as TV are more immediate and allow the viewer to be passive (as Proust suggested, the brain is a very lazy organ except in times of stress, which perhaps explains the number of confessional poems around). But then again, I was watching the excellent Taxi Driver the other day, an extremely popular film amongst cinema literate young people, and De-Niro's monologues are pure poetry. How much more charged with meaning can you get than: 'All the animals come out at night - whores, skunk pussies, buggers, queens, fairies, dopers, junkies, sick, venal. Someday a real rain will come and wash all this scum off the streets.' or 'The days go on and on... they don't end. All my life needed was a sense of someplace to go. I don't believe that one should devote his life to morbid self-attention, I believe that one should become a person like other people. ' I have taken the liberty of applying line breaks to found text, both in the tradition of Yeats and because I'm worth it (snigger). Cinema is an extremely assimilative artform. It often failed to hold itself in high regard during its formative years and was perhaps less ashamed to magpie from other forms. More fundamentally, its very nature enabled it to incorporate elements of all other non-interactive artforms. So maybe people are going elsewhere for the same fix? However, I think standalone poetry has so much potential because it offers the reader an experience that is uniquely his, precisely because he is forced to do the hard work. The poem gives you the bones, but you must put flesh on them through an exercise of the imagination; more so than with any other form, the audience is the artist. In a culture like ours where we have had our imaginations blunted through an excess of passively received sensation I think poetry is needed more than ever - it is the difference between a roller coaster ride and flying. Alex |
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