Göransson and Blatny and Tics, Oh My!

9 Comments

  1. Joseph Hutchison
    Joseph Hutchison March 27, 2009 at 6:48 pm .

    All I’m saying is that the value of a poem doesn’t derive from its adherence to a theory. Poems come first, and theories derive from them. It’s one thing to set two poems side by side and discuss their relative strengths and weaknesses, but its quite another to trot out a theory and argue that because a poem fulfills or illustrates the theory that poem has value. Social Realism and High Modernism

  2. Johannes
    Johannes March 27, 2009 at 6:42 pm .

    Also, Olson is without theory? Williams? Your reading of literary history is sadly and weirdly reductive. <BR/><BR/>The theory that you don’t need a theory to grapple with poems is in fact a theory and one that has been very repressive in American Poetry (New Criticism).<BR/><BR/>I do of course quite a bit of close reading in my response. I don’t just use D+G: I use them to make interesting

  3. Johannes
    Johannes March 27, 2009 at 6:35 pm .

    Joseph,<BR/><BR/>All evaluation is based on some theory. Give me a huge break. <BR/><BR/>Johannes

  4. Joseph Hutchison
    Joseph Hutchison March 27, 2009 at 5:45 pm .

    Excellent quotation! And yes, apropos. Who’s it from?

  5. J.H. Stotts
    J.H. Stotts March 27, 2009 at 5:18 pm .

    "Poetry’s power properly operates the same way as a riddle, in that it answers itself after resisting and seeming to have no answer. The optimal approach to reading is not research (even though many professors of literature have taught themselves to a fault), to start by looking for the footnotes that have not been supplied or to grope for references. It is a complete lie that a research paper

  6. Joseph Hutchison
    Joseph Hutchison March 27, 2009 at 3:59 pm .

    What’s weird is that you take a remark that is clearly not personal and make it personal. If I’d wanted to call you a High Modernist or Stalin (give me a break), I would have done it. My point, quite obviously, is that using theory to invest art with value is, from my point of view, wrongheaded. (I’ve laid out my position on this in an <A HREF="http://perpetualbird.blogspot.com/2008/08/

  7. Johannes
    Johannes March 27, 2009 at 3:14 pm .

    Because I have ideas about literature I"m suddenly a High modernist and… Stalin???<BR/><BR/>Very weird.<BR/><BR/>Johannes

  8. Joseph Hutchison
    Joseph Hutchison March 27, 2009 at 2:44 pm .

    Man, I envy your Zen! I’ll admit it: I am a think-a-holic. When a poem gives me a shiver, I set about figuring out why; same when a poem leaves me unmoved. Maybe I should seek treatment….

  9. William Michaelian
    William Michaelian March 26, 2009 at 8:31 pm .

    Göransson likes it and you don’t. I like it, and I like you both. Why do I like it? I don’t know. Maybe if I read it a few more times I’ll find out. But really, I’d rather let the matter float …

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