Quote:
Originally Posted by Erik Olson
What John said is very true.
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Erik,
Are we reading too literally here? Now, I admit, I have an aversion to Pope, so I'm going to recoil from any example citing him. But even his "What oft was thought, but ne'er so well expressed" contains an aesthetic, and is the basis for an aesthetic judgement.
I don't think anyone would suggest every poem should contain a brand new answer to the questions of "what do we know, what should we do, what can we hope for?" But surely every poet has thoughts about beauty and goodness and truth that go beyond saying one equals the other, and that's the extent of all possible knowledge? Surely everyone who puts pen to paper has a transformative and constantly transforming aesthetic, even if most don't care to articulate it.
Those are the two questions that most interest me: what can we say about beauty, and why are we so reluctant to say anything about it? Are there those who say we shouldn't talk about it? Yes, but we have to respect them enough to realize that underneath their objections there are defensible, intelligible judgments about the nature of beauty and the nature of poetry.
Of course, I blame Archibald MacLeish for this reluctance, but he passed on three decades ago, and that poem is from 1926. And he didn't mean it, even then.
Best,
Bill