Re: OT (sets and stuff)

On Feb 6, 4:38 pm, paul c <toledobythe..._at_oohay.ac> wrote:
> Marshall wrote:
>
> > Hope springs eternal in the human breast;
> > Man never Is, but always To be Blest.
>
> Marshall, I gather you're American, how come you're not quoting your
> mostly absent countryman, TS Eliot, who with his black precision stamped
> paid on Pope's pastoral view, something like "when there is distress of
> nations ... men's curiousity searches past and future and clings to that
> dimension"?

Not a big fan of Eliot, actually, although one must acknowledge that the Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock is a work of unbridled genius. Yes,
I'm an American (I was tempted to say "no, I'm a Californian") but I can't seem to get in to American poetry. The USA has produced some great literature: we have Hemingway and Fitzgerald and Faulkner, and dammit Raymond Chandler. And I'll claim the Transcendentalists will hold up creditably against any group of English philosophers.

But American poetry? Who you gonna hold up? We can nod in the direction of Longfellow, and Edna St. Vincent Millay, and Robert Pinsky
even. Steven Vincent Benet? His prose is better. Or consider Thoreau. He wrote a book that I believe will still be considered one of the greatest works of the English language centuries hence. His poetry? It's kind of painful, like when you favorite actor records an album, or when Steven King appears in his TV adaptations. Okay, so Gil Scott-Heron can sling some verse. Sure.

But English poetry? Oh. My. God. We'd be lucky to have someone like Robert Southey playing for our team, but over there all they remember him for is that Byron made fun of him. England has a great poet like Shelley and his wife writes a novel everyone has heard about close to two centuries later. You can't turn a spade at Westminister without disturbing more poetic talent than I can claim for my country.

Marshall

PS. A rat done bit my sister Nell
PPS. I'm now officially the literary poseur of the data management field. Received on Wed Feb 07 2007 - 04:39:13 CET