[lit-ideas] Re: Leavis on "Great" poetry
- From: Jlsperanza@xxxxxxx
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Wed, 18 Sep 2013 23:33:02 -0400 (EDT)
In a message dated 9/18/2013 12:30:46 P.M. Eastern Daylight Time,
lawrencehelm@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx writes about 'great'.
I am unhappy with Leavis’ use of the term “great.” It doesn’t seem to
fit the most noted and celebrated poets of the past. Is Dryden a “great”
poet?
Yes. I agree that people should stop using, so liberally, words which have
almost vacuous meanings -- when a standard of measure is lacking -- such as
'great', 'big' or 'small' for that matter.
Grice plays with the implicatures of
"Heidegger is the greatest living philosopher"
in his "Logic and Conversation".
Personally, I'm a fan of musical settings to English poetry, A. E. Housman
being on the top of my list. And I think it was H. P. Gosse who said that
Housman was a "minor poet" -- Gosse in fact wrote a 'defense' of Housman as
a minor poet. Implicature: there's something very big about being a 'minor'
poet.
So there!
But then, I guess Leavis would think that "The Minor Tradition" would
hardly sell -- in Cambridge, if not with Oxford's Blackwell!
Cheers,
Speranza
ps. My favourite setter of Housman seems to be Peele, but there's of course
Butterworth and HUNDRED others... Peele was especially multifacetic and
labeled a 'light musician', for what it's worth ("British light music").
-----
Some collocations: "Housman minor"
A Shropshire Lad, AE Housman - eNotes.com
_www.enotes.com/topics/shropshire-lad/.../shropshire-lad-e-housman_
(http://www.enotes.com/topics/shropshire-lad/.../shropshire-lad-e-housman)
Critics generally agree that what makes Housman a minor poet is his limited
range in tone, theme, and subject matter and his uninventive use of
traditional verse ...
Full text of "Theme and structure in Housman's A Shropshire lad"
archive.org/stream/.../themestructurein00leggrich_djvu.txt
'^'Alfred Edward Housman" in The Poet's Defence . .... R. P. Blackmur
concurs that Housman was not a great minor poet," for In his view of life and
death "he ...
A. E. Housman - Wikiquote
en.wikiquote.org/wiki/A._E._Housman
A. E. Housman ... 2 Quotes about A.E. Housman; 3 Attributed; 4 External
links ..... so on, but and absolutely marvellous minor poet, I think, and a
great scholar.
The Poetry of A. E. Housman | Novelguide
_www.novelguide.com_ (http://www.novelguide.com) › Literature
Housman believed that people were generally evil, and that life conspired
against ... Housman is considered a minor poet, primarily because of his use
of rhyme ...
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