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Tue, 21 Jul 1998 02:19:23 -0400 |
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At 12:03 AM 7/20/1998 -0400, Pawel Karwowski wrote:
>Dont you think Chris that we are right now in a very especial
,just peculiar situation when all the greatest writers of XX
century are dead and all the greatest writers of XXI century are
not born yet ? I have a strange impression it is the true .
Looking in the past I really can find books which are still
actual , written by people I consider a man of genius , but
presently when XX cent . is coming to an end - it looks that
what has remained for us - it is only sweeping and cleening
up the shelves . Preparing new shelves for incoming poets and
writers , deciding who was the best , who was overrated and so
on .
Sursum corda, Pawel, and consider the case of eighteenth-century English
poetry: a body of verse dominated from beginning (the death of Dryden in
1700) to end (the publication of Wordsworth and Coleridge's _Lyrical
Ballads_) by the overwhelming influence of a single great writer: Alexander
Pope. Pope himself died in 1744, but his influence on language was so
pervasive (even now, he's the second-most-quoted English poet after
Shakespeare) that for the next half-century the poets could hardly write
unless they submitted themselves to his genre model. Result: not
surprisingly, most English poetry in the second half of the century is
simply an inferior imitation of Pope. Yes, that reminds me of the second
half of the twentieth century.
But then Wordsworth and Coleridge came along, demonstrated that poetry was
ready again for change, and thereby brought closure at last to the Age of
Pope. And in what year did they publish _Lyrical Ballads_? Be of good cheer
and invest in a rhyming dictionary; the answer is 1798. If that history is
a guide, the Pound Era too may be about to come to its end. Let's honor it
as it passes, but let's let it pass as it must.
--
Jonathan Morse
Department of English
University of Hawaii at Manoa
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