First I want to congratulate Mac on his courage and on having started an interesting and spirited discussion. I hope there will be more bashing of the greats -- if they can't take it, then they aren't all that great after all. If they are great, then they are poorly served by becoming such icons that nobody remembers the reasons why they are great because it's been so long since the issue was debated.
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Second, I want to reply briefly to Steve.
1. Cold Comfort Farm was published in 1933. Mountain Interval (in which the Hill Wife appeared) was published in 1920 -- very likely the poem was around a good while before the collection came out.
It sounds like you're criticizing Frost for telling the same story that others have told. The trouble is that there really aren't that many basic stories -- I recall somebody claiming htat there were only about 5 main plots.
You put aside all of the poetic treatment as irrelevant, but that's pretty much all that's going to be new.
In this short form, he won't have the space for deep characterization. In forms that allow more space for such characterization, Frost characterizes brilliantly -- the wife in Home Burial for instance (and her character is not too far from this woman, as far as I can tell).
Most wisdom was discovered long ago, and if you were to boil it down to something short, it would all come out in things that sound like cliches.
One danger for the poet is to just recycle cliches, without adding any new spin.
The opposite danger (which looks more daring, but really isn't) is to avoid cliche by staying far away from any sort of wisdom -- by saying things that aren't worth saying at all.
The latter is another way to stay "safe" -- even if Frost fails (which I don't concede) maybe we should give him credit for daring a cliche.
[This message has been edited by ChrisW (edited May 03, 2001).]
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