[split] The Nothing

[Brownlie]

One example Brownlie. I figured most people would have heard of Coleridge, rather than someone like David V. Erdman. I guess you would consider Aristotle not worth the time as he was even further in the past. I'm sure his idea that all tragedy must have some comedy and all comedy must have some tragedy is not something that would benefit anyone. Nor would Coleridge's critiques on Shakespeare since they were only on the plays, which are not poems despite the fact they are generally written in blank verse (not to mention they are a primer in archetypes). No I don't know what anyone could get from the guy who wrote three of the greatest poems in the English language since the form he used then is so out of date today. I find it amazing that people toss away as garbage things they know virtually nothing about, taking only the most short sighted approach to a wealth of treasure. Believe it or not, at one time poets ached for knowledge whether it was germane or not, as they knew one can not prejudge what might and might not be valuable.   Poetry is not about the form one uses, although any poet worth the name should have control over and knowledge of the major forms. If one has no knowledge of formal poetry, i.e. metered rhyming poetry, one really has no idea what he is about when writing free verse, or as it was originally called, free iambic verse. Elliot pointed out that no verse is completely free, that is without constraint. In much of today's poetry people do not learn the older forms and so produce tone deaf poetry, copying only the superficial elements because they are unaware of the other aspects of free verse, as they have never taken the trouble to train their ear. They obviously have no conception of rhythm, cadence, beat or meter, and so like a deaf conductor they wave their stick in random fashion because they can not hear the music. It is impossible to explain this to them, as they have no conception of what it is they are missing(not to mention they consider it completely unimportant), of course this goes far beyond just the rhythmic quality of poetry.

Dale    

Well, I've studied both Aristotle and Coleridge (though not in-depth enough to call myself a scholar in those fields). However, the taxonomies of Aristotle face the problems of representational violence and all sorts of other things. I'm not sure how the whole mimesis thing holds up, but it seems to have been abandoned to a degree in the Romantic Period. I thought Coleridge was good, but not the best ever. Romanticism often faces the problem of going into the supremacy of the subject. I agree on the formal poetry being useful and whatnot. Yet, I think studying poetry goes beyond writing it. For instance, when Romantics are talking about power and life, how does that relate to the origins of race in biology? I mean, simply for its historical value, scholars may benefit from studying Blumenbach's hymn to a Georgian Skull (Apparently he's partly responsible for the whole Caucasian thing we use to designate the origins of white people).  (Also, in regard to Freedom, the paradoxical nature of the phrase seems to have been attempted by Milton and Percy Shelley, though Eliot's take on it is probably somewhat different.) One more thing, because I'm bloated by Yule, writing good criticism is a separate skill set. Coleridge was much more prolific in churning out criticism than Wordsworth, but some would say Wordsworth was a better poet. That should facilitate some discussion, please ignore any typos that may have been present.