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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