I often reminded my students when returning papers that those with the most
markings and marginal notes and suggested re-writes were often the best, most
hopeful, papers which, thus, merited the extra attention.
Ursula
On Apr 27, 2018, at 9:04 PM, John McCreery <john.mccreery@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Japanese copywriter Maki Jun called advertising copy “poetry with a business
suit on.” Whatever we think of that claim, it evokes a mention of advertising
critic Amano Yukichi, who ,when asked why he didn’t criticize bad ads,
replied that it was the critic’s job to offer hints for improvements in good
ones.
John
On Apr 27, 2018 15:49 +0800, Lawrence Helm <lawrencehelm@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>,
wrote:
Perhaps modern discussions on criticism aren’t ever going to go anywhere.
The 1994 issue of the TLS was devoted to criticism, but I read only the one
essay all the way through. The other articles and essays dealt with the
modern (and I guess it is still modern) critical argument that literature
and art ought to be political. A poet arguing for revolution in a Latin
American country is good. A poet like Wordsworth who wrote whimsical
unpolitical poems for the most part is bad. The TLS reviewers were
uncomfortable with the need to politicize literature, but did not actually
defend poets who didn’t have political goals in mind when then wrote.
Arguing against the consensus of that TLS issue, as Denis Donoghue
summarized, criticism has to be ancillary and subsequent to literature.
Years ago I read a lot of poetry that adhered to the Communist Party Line.
It was awful stuff. I think Harold Bloom would argue that any poetry
adhering to any party line must of necessity be awful stuff. It can’t have
been inspired by the poet. It must have been inspired by the Party Line
with the poet doing his or her best to do something good with it.
Of course there is always the poet who says, in effect, “I really do believe
in the Party Line (of whatever) and so my poems are inspired by me (however
a poet is inspired) and not the Party Line. I’m not convinced by that
argument, but one can’t really argue with the poet who is.
The critic I am most impressed with in these later modern times is Hellen
Vendler. Unlike I. A. Richards she does close readings, and she is in my
opinion very good. She has no grand system or philosophy of literature that
I’ve read her arguing thus far, but she will argue that a particular poem of
Wallace Stevens is excellent, and proceed with a close reading that will
probably convince you that she is right. I appreciate her sort of criticism.
I have read a number of critics in the past who take a different approach,
who do promote systems and philosophies of poetry, and while I can’t be sure
that none of that sort of thing (especially the ideas of T. S. Eliot and
Ezra Pound) isn’t stuck in my psyche some place, I can’t at this moment
bring a single bit of it to mind.
Lawrence
